


Come Hell or High Water

by Redclaire999



Category: NCIS
Genre: A little bit smutty in places!, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Child murder case but nothing graphic!, Claustrophobia, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Injury, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Content, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 40,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26900314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redclaire999/pseuds/Redclaire999
Summary: A horrible case pushes them together then drives them apart. Will they drown in their mutual misery and stubborn doggedness or can they salvage something from the wreckage?
Relationships: Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Comments: 144
Kudos: 106





	1. In too deep

Ellie was professionally, ethically and legally in the right but having the moral high ground, being _in the right_ , had never left her feeling so low, so _wrong_ in her entire life.

The look he gave her was one of hurt, disbelief and disgust at her betrayal and whatever had been between them, their fledgeling relationship, their friendship, partnership, died right there.

There would be no forgiveness for her disloyalty, for not backing him up, for not having faith in him.

Not this time.

And it was killing her.

Ellie sat on her sofa, alone, barely noticing the autumn evening dim into night, replaying the day over and over again, trying to put some semblance of order on the tumultuous events but in her heart, she knew it was a debacle of her own making.

It was hard to believe how awful she felt now when the day had started so well!

They’d had a lovely, relaxed breakfast together at the diner, a new routine that had grown over the few weeks they had been seeing each other.

‘Seeing each other’, such a strange phrase to describe the recent, tentative shift in their relationship, after all, they had been ‘ _seeing’_ each other pretty much _every_ day, had done for years, working together, hanging out, being best friends.

But _this_ case had brought them together in a way that she’d only ever hoped for, and now it had ripped them apart before they’d even found their feet.

So far three young children abducted and murdered, their broken bodies found washed up on the banks of the Potomac, within the confines of the Naval Base at Indian Head making it an NCIS case, but one nobody wanted. Everyone on the team felt sick just looking at the still photos of the evidence and the autopsies.

The distraught, anguished wailing of the moms would haunt them all.

McGee and Palmer were suffering the most, they had kids that age after all.

It was horrible for everyone else, but Nick really struggled with this case, his years undercover had led him to dark places, where molested and massacred kids still gave him nightmares. After the second kid was found, a five-year-old little boy Ben Martinez, Nick hit the bar, angry, frustrated and with a thirst for blood only quenched with a bottle of tequila and a kiss.

Yeah, _she_ had kissed him.

They were both knocking back drinks trying to wash away the memory of the pale, tiny, bloated body and drown out Ben’s mom’s keening. It started with just a touch as she covered his rock-hard, clenched fist with her own soft palm, forcing him to quit thumping the bar table in his fury. The unshed tears in his desperate eyes had broken her already fragile heart and as they sat hip to hip, their two heads drawn together in a dim corner booth she spoke to him softly, telling him he could do no more than anyone else on the team, that none of this was his fault, that they'd get the bastard in the end and she had kissed him.

It wasn’t a passionate kiss, it was just offering solace or support, comfort between friends, consolation between partners who were both suffering.

But it was like a dam burst within Ellie, every suppressed feeling she had pent up and held back for Nick bubbled to the surface, flooding her heart with happiness, warmth and raw emotion and she knew in that moment he felt it too.

They kissed again when the taxi arrived at her apartment, his hands gentle on her face, as his lips discovered her mouth but neither apparently wanted to push the situation. Sex was so not on their minds, not that night anyways.

She thought the next day he might conveniently ‘forget’ all about their little drunken _moment_ , they'd both struggled with head-hammering hangovers so he had an easy 'out' if he wanted it but he didn’t. They were exhausted working the case and it was late, but somehow the wall he had built around himself, between them, finally fell down and he let her in.

‘Thanks for last night B, for, you know, saving me from myself, _again_ ’ he shrugged apologetically.

‘Yeah well, there was a pair of us in it! I had a fair few myself Nick so maybe we saved each other from drowning ourselves in our sorrows’, she brushed it off, hoping her easy manner would reassure him that she didn’t see it as a frailty and that she wasn’t reading too much into their kiss.

‘I shouldn’t have drank so much. You were right, it’s not a good coping mechanism’. He seemed disappointed in himself that he’d appeared weak, that he'd fallen back on to alcohol when stuff got rough, like after Reeves.

‘Nick, it was a shitty day' she consoled him softly, 'but yeah, I hear ya. We need a better way to cope, huh? More goat yoga?’ she asked him brightly, hoping a little playful frivolity would lighten his mood.

‘I’m a hard no to goats' he scoffed with one of his smiles, 'but um, how about a date? Maybe dinner?’ he asked shyly as he straightened the files on her already tidy desk, his eyes flicking nervously to hers.

‘ _Huh?_ ’ she inelegantly blurted in surprise, immediately feeling heat flooding her face even as she struggled to compute that Nick Torres was actually asking her out, like _out_ out.

‘You and me, I’m asking you if you’d like to have dinner with me… of course, it’s cool, totally cool, if you don’t want to I mean-,’ he backpedalled anxiously, probably fearing that he had read her wrong and was overwhelmed with awkwardness to the point of stuttering.

‘Yeah, Nick I’d love to’ she replied firmly as she gulped down the golf ball of sudden nervous excitement in her throat.

‘No time like the present?’ he suggested eagerly, tumbling over his words in enthusiasm.

‘Ok!’ she agreed without hesitation. They were doing this, and she couldn’t keep the smile from lighting up her face.

So they had dinner in a local Italian place, not too fancy, they were both still in their work clothes but they talked and laughed and it was really nice, different than all the times they had eaten together as co-workers.

He had dropped her home and they kissed for a while on her front step. Instinctively they both knew that they needed to take things slow, both nervous and more than a little goofy with shy embarrassment now that they had moved to the next level. He picked her up the next morning as her car was still at the Navy Yard from the evening before and they had breakfast together and it was lovely, hanging out, talking about stuff and making plans to spend a lot more time together, away from the office, where they decided to keep things between them absolutely on the down-low.

They were doing this, they wanted this.

A few weeks passed of dating, like proper easy-going, cheesy, romantic dating. They went to the movies, spent a Saturday hiking and managed not to maim themselves when they went disco roller-skating! They went out for dinner and drinks a lot; he knew her well enough to know she loved to eat and as the days and weeks passed she could see him relax and shuffle off his swaggering facade, be himself in all his sweet and funny and ridiculously romantic glory. She knew she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker.

Last night they had hung out in her apartment, shattered tired and both upset as the third body had been found, Layla Evans aged just five.

She had strawberry-blonde hair and red Converse hi-tops on her tiny, pallid feet.

That one image was indelibly marked in Ellie's mind. Nick had stood at the scene clenching and rolling his fists, his jaw almost cracking as he ground his teeth in angry frustration whilst watching poor Jimmy gently bagging up the little girl’s remains. It was just a horrible day and they needed to be together, just to be near each other. 

They might have only been dating a short while but Ellie already needed Nick so intensely, so profoundly it would've scared her if she felt like this for anyone else. But it was Nick, her safe harbour in any storm. Nick’s mere presence could comfort her in a way nobody or nothing else could and it seemed the feeling was mutual.

Neither wanted to be alone so Nick stayed over and they’d shared her bed – both of them were ridiculously shy to begin with, but that eventually disappeared and lying with her head resting on his chest and his arms wrapped protectively around her had felt like the most natural thing in the world. Hands had… _wandered_ during the night, which she had _definitely_ enjoyed, but they hadn’t taken things any further, happy enough to take their time because they both knew _this_ relationship was different from the others they had experienced in the past and both were nervous of the magnitude of sharing that ‘next step’ experience. The road from friendship to lovers was fraught with risks and failure was not an option either wanted.

But there was a dark cloud over their newly developing relationship. Neither wanted their first time together to be overshadowed, tarnished, poisoned with the memories of that day. They both wanted to make love from a place of joy rather than where they were now, full of grief and anger at the loss of innocent life and frustrated at their inability to catch the perpetrator.

She thought they would have time, later, after this awful case but all hope of that was gone now.

He was ‘done’; done with _her_ , with _them_ as a couple, god probably even done with NCIS!

She had done the right thing and he would never forgive her.

Captain David Melden had Nick’s hackles up the first time they met him. Ellie took an instant dislike to him too but with Nick, it was guttural, instinctive and resolute. He was 100% sure he was the culprit of these heinous crimes. The guy was apparently out fishing, alone in torrential rain, at the right time and the right place the evening the first child was found, he’d even raised the alarm alerting base authorities to the presence of a body in the reeds. He lived a street away from the second victim. He played soccer with Layla’s dad.

Gibbs’s Rule 39; there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

Everything was circumstantial against him and he had an alibi of sorts for when each of the children was abducted. There was no other evidence linking him to the murders other than a gut feeling that the guy was lying and seemed unmoved, indifferent even, to the photos of dead kids. The expressions on his face simply did not match the words coming out of his mouth. The forty-year-old officer was smug, slick, and sure of himself in a way that put everyone’s teeth on edge, especially Nick who had him pegged as the perpetrator from day one.

Nick had been in an odd mood since they arrived into the office and while she had sifted through CCTV footage, he had disappeared for a while, his location finally discovered when she and Gibbs found him already in the morgue standing guard almost over the body of Layla, his face full of stony determination. Jimmy had an equally bleak expression as he reported his results. The child had drowned but only a few hours before being found, like the other kids they had been held for three days after abduction before they died. This child, like the others, had been found fully-clothed and hadn’t been sexually assaulted either but there were bruises of rough handling, skin scrapes, grazed knees and broken fingernails. All DNA evidence and residue had been washed away by the river.

They were no further along with the case, but Nick argued they _had_ to go talk to David Melden again, even though she thought it was a bad idea, he was too wound up, his emotions too volatile.

But Gibbs OKed it, his gut saying something was off with the captain too.

Gibbs should have gone with him, not her, but maybe that was the plan all along? Sitting in the dark on her sofa now her analytical mind speculated, pondered and weighed up the likelihood of every possibility. It couldn’t be as black and white as it seemed, right?

At Melden’s house they asked some polite probing questions about his alibi, the guy was as cocky as hell though, knowing full well they were frustrated they still had nothing on him. He was the type who leered at her, invading her personal space with his eyes and almost goading Nick to retaliate. Melden seemed to have picked up on whatever relationship vibe they had going on and artfully played on it. While she held it together, the subtle predatory eyeballing he threw her was really messing with Nick’s head.

Growing tired of his manipulation of the conversation Nick prompted her with a veiled flick of his eyes towards the staircase and she did her usual asking to use the bathroom routine so she could pooch around, looking for anything suspicious. The captain was as cool as a cucumber, giving her directions to the toilet upstairs without blinking an eye.

If he was responsible for the kidnapping and death of the kids, it didn’t happen here.

She wasn’t long upstairs when she heard a commotion breaking out.

Dashing back down she found Nick with the guy in a headlock, face down against the glass of the coffee table, his arm bent awkwardly almost to breaking point behind his back.

‘Say it again Melden!’ Nick roared at the squealing officer.

‘What? Say what again?’ the captain managed to jeer even as he spluttered ‘I want my lawyer!’

‘B, you heard him, right? He confessed!’

‘Did I? Prove it!' he laughed harshly, then grimaced as Nick twisted his fingers some more, 'Agent Bishop, your colleague has lost his fucking mind, get this animal off me!’

‘B, he said it, laughed he liked to watch them panic in the dark before they drowned, you heard it!’ Nick swore, his eyes wild.

‘This is bullshit!’ Melden coughed, ‘you have nothing on me, you really think I would what, just tell you I did such a _terrible_ crime!’ he sneered, his voice dripping with mocking disingenuousness.

‘Ellie, call it in, we need a warrant for a full forensic sweep!’ Nick exclaimed his face flitting through so many emotions, sincerity, disgust, confidence that they had their killer.

‘Nick stop, you're going to break his arm, ease off!’ bloodstained drool was hanging from the guys lips, Nick must have got a couple of thumps in before restraining him.

‘It’s him B, he did it! You will _never_ hurt another kid!’ he hissed at Melden, his visceral hatred of the guy rolling off him in waves. Ellie noticed Melden smirked at that and her stomach heaved, was this the face of real evil?

‘Ok, ok,’ she replied tersely putting handcuffs on the guy and peeling Nick’s hands off him. Nick stomped off, his chest heaving in agitation and fury while the Melden, suddenly unruffled and composed, sat on the floor and triumphantly sneered some more at Nick.

Her skin crawled just looking at him.

She was already dreading writing up the whole thing, procedurally it was a mess. Nick seemed oblivious to her concern, he was simply relieved they had Melden in cuffs, off the street and away from children.

She didn’t get a chance to talk to Nick both being pulled away to reports and paperwork. And it never stopped raining, a heavy drenching downpour slowing their work at the scene, making traffic a nightmare. She was cold and damp, tired and hungry.

The afternoon, however, went from bad to worse. Gibbs tried to interrogate Captain Melden back in NCIS but once his lawyer arrived he made mincemeat of the arrest, citing excessive force, lack of a warrant, trespass and worst…planting evidence.

A strawberry blonde hair was found on the captain’s sweater.

Ellie had a very bad feeling about everything, something was ‘off’.

They both stood in Vance’s office, Nick stoically silent, eyes front and centre as he once again gave his verbal account of the events in the house. Vance listened as Nick implied she too had witnessed the confession, their boss looking at her face while Nick carefully constructed his words leaving wriggle room but not outright lying. When finished he was told to wait outside. He gave her a tight smile as he left the room and then it was her turn.

‘Agent Bishop, did you hear the Captain confess?’

‘Um, sir I was upstairs at the time, scoping out-, um, I mean using the bathroom’ she quickly recovered.

‘You know it is totally against protocol to leave your partner alone with a suspect?’

‘Yes sir’ she squirmed aware her boss knew exactly how she and Nick operated in a suspect’s home, knew every trick in the book, in fact.

‘So, you didn’t see the Captain become belligerent with your partner prior to him confining Melden in a controlled restraint.’

‘Um, not exactly no’ she answered evasively. ‘but Melden had been subtly intimidating towards us, especially me, prior to my leaving the room.’

‘And was Agent Torres out of your sight?’

‘Yes, but only for a couple of minutes’

‘So it’s _possible_ he could have planted that hair sample?’

He said the words deliberately slowly so she would pick up on the interference.

‘Nick, I mean Agent Torres wouldn’t-, I don’t believe…’

 _He wouldn’t, would he?_ Doubts gnawed her insides despite her head telling her she _had_ to be wrong.

‘I didn’t ask you what you _believe_ Agent Bishop. The facts are Torres was alone this morning in autopsy with the body of Layla Evans, he then suggested a visit to the Captain’s home, he made sure you were absent, then reported an unwitnessed confrontational outburst leading to force and a confession, _then_ a conveniently placed incriminating hair-strand was found on the suspect’s clothing, you see where I’m going with this?’ he drolled sarcastically.

‘Yes, sir I see but I-,’

‘Agent Bishop, at this moment the Captain’s lawyer is threatening to sue NCIS for just about everything but they are willing to accept an apology from Agent Torres on condition we cease harassing his client’

‘Even though they’re suggesting evidence was _planted_? Come on! He’s playing us!’ she blurted incredulously.

Vance just eyeballed her, maybe he thought that too, or maybe not, he had a great poker face!

‘What are you asking me for Sir? Because to my mind it’s _just_ as plausible the Captain is guilty of murdering those kids and that’s why the hair was there and being an overconfident jerk he confessed that to Nick’ she argued back on the offensive, not liking the turn of the tone to accusation.

‘So, he confessed to _Torres_?’ he confirmed pointedly, hanging her on her own words. ‘Look if _you_ heard him confess too, we’ll go nuclear on his ass. We have little concrete evidence but the sworn testimony of two agents might be enough to indict. You need to be certain because it’s your career on the line if you are wrong. O _ne_ agent’s word, uncorroborated, unwitnessed against a Captain with friends in high places? Well do the maths. He could walk on technicalities and be virtually untouchable. An apology, as irksome as that is now, gives us time to find more evidence, to build a lawyer-proof case against the guy’ he finished reasonably.

She had a choice to make. She could lie now to support Nick’s version knowing she would have to repeat that lie again later, under oath, when in fact she hadn’t heard it… and as much as she wanted to she couldn’t be 100% certain Nick didn’t plant that hair. He was consumed with this case, with nailing Melden for it.

The thought also crossed her mind that even worse, what if it wasn’t Melden at all! The _real_ suspect could be someone they hadn’t looked at yet but if they arrested Melden now the investigation would stall, the real killer could get away.

She knew Nick was adamant the guy had admitted to the crimes, but he had fixated on Melden being guilty weeks ago; his gut told him.

The other rational, logical option; she could tell the truth and the guy walked today with an apology but with the opportunity still there to get the real evidence they needed to arrest him later. The fallout would be messy, Nick would _not_ be happy to have to apologise to the guy. But better a safe, solid conviction than a mistrial or acquittal, right?

She went with her gut, though it made her feel sick.

‘Did _you_ hear Captain Melden confess Agent Bishop, as reported in Torres’s statement?’ the Director reiterated deliberately.

‘No sir, I did not’.

When she was a little girl her mom had always preached ‘ _the truth costs you nothing but a lie can cost you everything’._

She was wrong.

The _truth_ just cost her everything.


	2. Drifting apart

Suspended.

_What the actual fuck!_

Bad enough he had to apologise to that smug bastard Melden but then the Director hit him with a two-week suspension and just for good measure Vance informed him he was handing the entire case over to the Feds, the BAU or whatever. Gibbs grizzled about it, pulled in a favour to be kept in the loop with some oversight of developments but essentially NCIS had been kicked off the case and Melden was cock-a-hoop about it. He really did have friends higher up the food chain who were _not_ happy about a decorated Navy Captain being called out as a child murderer without rock-solid, gold-plated evidence!

Nick braced himself in front of Melden and his bored-looking, pin-striped lawyer, his hands clasped behind his back and monotonously recited the prepared statement of apology that Vance had insisted on. His teeth were gritted in barely concealed hostility and his face mirrored his blatant revulsion of the ‘man’ before him. He might have been _ordered_ to pull off this show on pain being fired but it was plain to see he was _fucking not sorry_ for any misunderstandings, alleged rough handling or erroneous restraint. Vance glossed over the hair-strand evidence as Nick himself had point-blank refused to budge on that. No charges against the Captain would be made on the back of that, possible cross-contamination was vaguely blamed. The Captain magnanimously accepted the apology on the understanding that there would be no further assaults on his ‘good’ name by reckless agents. Vance assured Melden that said reckless agent had been removed from the investigation.

If Nick was meant to feel chastised or repentant by the suspension and reduced pay, he didn’t.

He was instead furious, seething, livid with rage.

The arrogant bastard was walking away when Nick knew 100% the guy was guilty and now there was _nothing_ he could do to stop him as he strolled through the lobby shaking hands with his dickhead expensive attorney, essentially untouchable.

But that wasn’t the only reason Nick was mad. He had never felt so gut-punched in his life and that was saying a lot as he had been in countless scrapes and double-crosses. The rug was well and truly pulled out from under his feet, he was completely lost at sea.

Dismissed by Vance he stomped down to his desk and snatched his go-bag and she had the temerity to ask how it went, _was he ok_!?

He couldn’t even look at her.

He ground his jaw so hard his teeth ached in his effort not to ball her out of it right there. She’d come around behind his desk as he grabbed random personal stuff, shoving them into his bag with way more force than was strictly necessary. She was so close to him he could smell the apple-scented body wash she had used in the shower just that morning… when he had been so tempted to follow her into the bathroom and join her under the hot water and just let it finally happen between them. He had never wanted someone so intensely, lying there in her bed after a night of touching and feeling and holding each other. There was an intimacy between them he had never had with anyone else, the slow pace of their relationship so far had only made it more precious to him, made _Ellie_ more precious to him.

He felt his hurt escalate, burning resentment crawled up his throat and he doubted he could control his growing temper.

He needed out, away from her before he said something he would regret.

‘Nick?’ she whispered anxiously, obviously picking up on his indignant vibe. Her hand reached out his touch his arm and he yanked it away abruptly as if her finger were a white-hot branding iron. His breath came out in an angry snort as he bit back his blazing temper, not trusting himself with words just yet.

‘Nick, can we talk, please?’ she begged urgently but he just brushed by her, avoiding even being in her personal space like her body was contagious and stamped his way to the elevator without a single word to her or to a stunned McGee who had watched the altercation without comment.

Home no more than an hour, he heard Ellie's familiar knock at his door. He wasn’t even surprised; he hadn’t replied to her eight texts or her five calls and Ellie was not a woman to let things drop. He knew a confrontation was coming and he was wound so tight now he knew it was going to get ugly no matter what she said to explain herself.

‘What do you want Bishop?’ he snapped as he opened the door. She flinched a little at his barking tone but she squared her petite shoulders and undaunted marched past him, rounded on him in his living room.

_Angry, she was fucking angry -with him!_

‘Eh, to talk about this’ she replied, imperiously flicking her finger between them.

‘I have nothing to say to you’ he snorted refusing to meet her eyes. He could feel his pulse hammering in the strained sinews of his neck as he clenched his jaw again.

‘Look Nick, I get that you're mad with me but I had to-,’

‘What, Bishop? You had to _what_? Stab me in the back? Make me out to be a liar? Let a murderer go free? Because if he kills another kid it’s on _you_! That bullshit today, well you as good as drowned them yourself!’

‘ _What_...?’ she choked, sounding horrified by his outburst, but he wasn’t finished yet.

‘All you had to do was back me up and he’d be behind bars, but no you had to back _him_ up and now he’s untouchable and I’m suspended!’

‘I couldn’t _lie_ Nick!’

‘But you think _I_ lied?’ he demanded, and her face said it all.

‘Nick, did you put that hair-?’

‘ _Stop!_ Fuck Ellie! I can’t believe you just asked that!’ he growled as he ran his shaking hands roughly through his hair and scrubbed his face, still trying to take in that she would accuse him.

‘Come on Nick, you’ve been obsessed with this guy for weeks!’

‘Because he’s fucking _GUILTY_!’ he bellowed almost pulling his hair out in frustration.

‘Nick, we have nothing on him other than a hunch and one dubiously placed hair that can’t be admitted as evidence’ she reasoned heatedly.

‘And whose fucking fault is that Bishop!’ he roared at her ‘I thought you, you of all people would back me up, have my back, have a little _faith_ in me’ he snarled and he could see the words hit her like bullets, the same words he had said after he’d been drugged and she questioned him if he could have killed that girl last year.

She swore then she’d never doubt him again. They were only partners back then, but it had nearly destroyed their friendship, now the hurt of her betrayal, her lack of trust in him now was soul-destroying. He would walk through fire for the woman standing before him, no questions asked, and it was killing him that his feelings were not shared, his faith in her was not reciprocated. He had spent his life shunning relationships because of his trust issues, but he had let her in, beyond partnership, deeper than friendship, he had let her into his heart.

‘I have faith in you, Nick, I told the truth to protect you!’ she claimed, her complexion paling as the ferocity of his anger and resentment flagged this as way more than some tiff.

‘ _Protect_ me?’ he repeated back to her incredulously, his head jerking back in a double-take.

‘How would it look if it went to trial and he got off because you _planted_ evidence. I get the _why_ but Nick, you’d lose your job! And so would I, for corroborating your version’ she explained reasonably.

‘You really believe I did it, don’t you?’ he breathed, totally taken aback and cut to the bone. ‘I have never lied to you, never!’

‘Nick, this isn’t about lying to me, not really, it’s about the case’ she spoke softly and stepped closer to him but he pulled away and crossed his arms shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Nick!’ she wheedled him, her head tilted to the side as she tried to cajole him into what, calming down, accepting her logic?

She really didn’t see the damage she had done at all, did she?

He thought about his joy, his exhilaration at being in a relationship with Ellie over the past few weeks, completely content that they were taking their time with dating, learning to share his thoughts and letting down his guard a little more each day, easing into just being with her and then the intimacy of last night had taken his breath away. He was only just coming to terms with his new reality, relaxing into the belief that this, what they were building, was more than a fling or a flirty phase. He had avoided starting anything with Ellie because this was exactly what he feared; he would fall hard, and he would want it to be forever. She was already part of his soul.

There was no ‘half-way’ being with Ellie, not for him.

All or nothing.

But right now there was nothing, ‘they’ were nothing.

Her job came first, she didn’t believe him, in him and she didn’t trust him.

Relationships had to be built on trust, honesty and belief that the other person always put you first, number one priority.

They were damaged beyond repair, broken trust, shattered faith. It was too late to pick the pieces up.

‘Just go Ellie, just get the fuck out’ his stomach churned saying it but the nausea of disillusionment was worse

‘Wait, _what_?’ she spluttered, wounded confusion warring with anger across her blanching features probably with his use of language at her.

‘Leave! We’re done here. Go!’ he held the door open and pointed to it only barely keeping a lid on his temper.

‘Nick? What do you mean _we’re done_? We need to talk about this’. Oh, now he could hear the alarm in her voice but he steeled his heart. Her lashes suddenly sparkled with tears but it was too late. He was too hurt.

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. _We_ ,’ he flicked his finger between them in a cynical imitation of her earlier gesture, ‘we are done’ he finished with flinty resolve.

After she left, her head low and her shoulders slumped, tail well and truly between her legs Nick paced around his small apartment chewing over their argument, devising new pithy comments and sling-backs he could have fired at her to show how angry, how offended he was by her actions and accusations. Yelling at her felt good while he was doing it, but his traitorous heart felt horribly uneasy afterwards. They had duelled, savagely cutting each other with harsh words and already he couldn’t remember half of what they’d said, he could only recall the hurt and the unfairness.

_Two fucking weeks of suspension on half-pay!!_

He had a few choices open to him. He tried running, then punching stuff in the gym, more running until his muscles burned and his legs felt like they were made of jelly. But, as he knew it would, that first evening ended in the bottom dregs of a bottle of Tequila. He was too wired to sleep, his mind replaying and rerunning everything on loop, Melden, Ellie, Melden smirking, Ellie upset, Melden confessing to him, Ellie condemning him.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

He couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let Captain Melden get away with what Nick just _knew_ he had done. Sure he could spend two weeks like a vacation, chilling, watching Netflix, eating his body weight in take-out, drowning his vexations in a bottle of something 40% proof, tearing himself up about Ellie, who he was still _beyond_ furious with and who he was so done with anyway so he had to stop with the thinking about her.

He needed a better coping strategy than his usual ones like they had talked about…Mixing alcohol and thinking about her had got him into this mess in the first place!

No, he needed a purpose, a task, a mission.

The solution came to him effortlessly. He would _prove_ Melden killed those kids and then everyone would know he was right, he would be vindicated, fully justified when confirming that he didn’t fabricate or plant evidence like he was blamed.

Then _she_ would know too…not that her opinion mattered to him, he was _so_ over that. No, this was about Nick clearing his name, it was about protecting other kids and finally, eventually, having the pleasure of dragging Melden into custody to enjoy a life sentence.

And that’s how he found himself parked on a leafy suburban street, staking out Melden’s house on around the clock surveillance. Nick furtively followed him everywhere 24/7, taking notes of times, places even going through his trash looking for evidence, something, _anything_ incriminating. He slept in the car, took toilet breaks in the deli where he picked up his food. He looked like shit and smelled worse. His mind festered on the case, determined in gritty singlemindedness day after day, night after night.

The two weeks passed disappointingly fast.

He got nothing on the guy, but it sure felt better to be doing something constructive rather than sulking at home.

She hadn’t texted or called, not that he would’ve replied or answered anyway. Gibbs texted to say he wanted to him to ‘talk’ to Sloane Monday 9 am, no excuses.

_Great, another head-melting anger management session!_

He’d have preferred a chewing out from Gibbs, bish bash bosh, done and over!

Monday could have gone one of two ways; he could slink in and keep his head down or he could strut his stuff, take any bitchy, smart ass jibes on the chin and roll with the punches. Of course, he decided on the latter, he was not the shrinking violet kinda guy.

Jack’s appointment was actually ok, she kept the psycho-babble to a minimum and everyone else was cool with him, guess they all had their buttons pushed by Melden even though the case wasn’t mentioned specifically. The FBI was running the investigation now and the team had moved on to other outstanding cases.

Ellie barely looked at him, turning her back by swivelling her desk chair around, earphones glued to her head, hours deep in urgent translations McGee said as an explanation.

Yeah right!

 _So that’s how we’re going to play this huh?_ Ignoring him? Well, not an issue! He had absolutely nothing to say to her.

Zilch, zero, nada!

A couple of days passed of frosty, awkward silence between them. Everyone noticed, eyebrows were raised, people tip-toed around them and the tension in the bullpen just kept on rising. Individually they were friendly and chatty to everyone else but neither addressed the other directly, both stormed off in separate directions for breaks and McGee was Mr Popularity and first choice for pairing up with for any outside in the field casework.

Wednesday seemed to be continuing in the same vein. Nick was tired and grumpy. He had resumed his surveillance of Melden every hour he could spare, and it was taking its toll. The lack of sleep wasn’t so bad, he functioned fine on only a couple of hours, a legacy of the years spent undercover. Anyhow he didn’t want more sleep…every time he closed his eyes he saw her, dreamed of her body against his… Snatching snoozes in his car was way better than being alone all night in his own empty bed with ‘needs’. There was apparently no way to jerk off and not see her god damn face!

No, it was the lack of real exercise that was vexing him. He hadn’t been to the gym because of his personal stake-out op, and now he felt cooped up and penned in and _sitting_ at his desk for hours certainly wasn’t improving his mood. So, when Gibbs strode in announcing a suspiciously dead sailor at sea aboard the USS Bainbridge he jumped at the chance.

‘Boss, I’m good to go’ he all but bounced on the balls of his feet with impatience to get out, anywhere, just away from the lurid orange walls.

‘Ok Torres’ the older guy gave him an appraising look before curtly nodding in agreement. ‘Grab your gear and give Palmer the heads up, he’ll be doing the initial medical exam and flying back with the body. The Bainbridge is currently deployed near Bermuda. Heli-transporter will be leaving Andrews within the hour.’

‘Got it boss’ he chirped enthusiastically. It a was short-lived delight.

‘Bishop! Bishop?’ Gibbs called over to the back of her oblivious blonde head as she was still lost in translations.

 _No, no. no!_ He _so_ did not need to be stuck in confined quarters with her for the next few days!

‘Erm Boss, couldn’t McGee catch this one with me? I mean, Bishop’s kinda busy with the Chinese interpreter stuff…’

‘Nope’ Gibbs gave him the no-discussion death stare and Nick knew it was a lost cause.

‘Bishop, you're up!’ he barked once she had pulled off her headset in response to his tap on her shoulder. ‘Dead sailor on the Bainbridge, grab your gear’.

‘Right, erm, yeah’ she stuttered out nervously, seems she’d twigged almost immediately who her partner would be for this case and looked just as impressed with the situation as he was. He actually saw her grimace, he knew her angry face, hell he knew all her expressions by heart and she was pissed off to be paired with him.

He saw red.

He noticed her flinch as his eyes darkened in temper and he sniffed in irate disdain but the glare she returned was oozing with flinty stubbornness. How fucking dare she be angry with him, she was the one who stabbed him in the back!

Nick followed Gibbs towards the corridor, away from Bishop and called out politely, best foot forward!

‘Um, Boss, do you have a second?’

He had to try.

‘What do you want Torres?’ Gibbs stood toe to toe with him, almost daring him to continue, the guy was omniscient!

‘I really think McGee would be a better fit for this case, Boss’ Nick started out sensibly.

‘You do, huh? Any reason?’

‘Um, Bishop and I are not exactly-,’

‘Not exactly what Nick?’ he interrupted him bluntly, _fuck he knew!_

‘Look the Melden case caused friction ok, we’re not in a good place as colleagues just now. It messed up our working relationship mojo’

_Just shut the fuck up Torres! So don’t need more trouble with Rule 12 crap on top of everything else!_

‘Just that?’ Gibbs drilled down into his excuses mercilessly.

‘Boss, she's my partner, she didn’t- I mean she basically-, she accused me-,’

‘Did you plant the evidence, Torres?’ Gibbs asked brusquely, not sugar-coating his words at all.

‘No, Gibbs I didn’t, I swear’ he replied earnestly.

God, did everyone think he’d done it, was it so easy to believe about him?

‘Ok’ he nodded apparently accepting his assertion without further investigation, ‘so are you pissed off with _me_ for asking?’

‘No, it’s your job!’

‘So why are you stonewalling Bishop? She asked you the same fair question, it’s her job too!’

‘It’s different-, um, hard to explain. She screwed me over!’ he muttered under his breath, annoyed with himself for even starting this conversation.

‘She’s your partner, she knows you best and the way I see it she _was_ having your back. You bend the law, don’t break it!’

‘I didn’t _break_ anything Boss, Melden confessed, the hair was there but he walked and I got suspended because _she_ didn’t back me up!’ he snarled and he could feel his short nails cutting into his palms as he fisted his hands in temper.

‘You both broke protocol and shit happens as a result. Nick, you looked guilty as hell, it jeopardised the entire case and I know what I know about you and evidence and a certain case involving a biker gang-leader you needed to put away. Does she?’

‘No!’ He was still ashamed that he’d planted incriminating evidence, just that one-time years ago, the ‘greater good’ argument didn’t wash with him any better now than it did back then. He couldn’t face telling Ellie how he had screwed up, how devious and dishonest he had been. He couldn’t cope seeing that disappointment in her eyes. Gibbs knew and that was enough.

‘So you have a guilty conscious for a past deed and you're taking it out on your partner?’ typical Gibbs hit the nail on the head. He couldn’t even respond to that doozy!

His face flared suddenly hot as he squirmed in irritated humiliation. Gibbs’s penetrating stare was like a laser-beam into his soul.

‘Work the case, sort it out between you and Bishop. We’ve _all_ had enough of the High Noon standoff crap between you two. Fix it or I will!’ he snapped impatiently and strode away leaving Nick fuming in the corridor dreading a tortuous few days with the person he least wanted to face… other than the guy in the mirror.


	3. Distress signal

They were an hour out over the ocean and Jimmy was still filling the awkward silence between them with fascinating facts. They’d already had the Bermuda Triangle myths, the origin of Bermuda shorts and he was currently wowing her with his expansive knowledge of the Sargasso Sea, although she was kind of interested when he spoke about the book _[Wide Sargasso Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Sargasso_Sea)_ by [Jean Rhys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Rhys), apparently a rewriting of Charlotte Brontë's _[Jane Eyre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre)_ from [Bertha Mason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Mason)'s point of view. She made a mental note to buy the novel when she got home.

Nick persisted in pointedly ignoring her just as he had since his return to work and now, he feigned sleep to avoid having to participate in the conversation with herself and the jabbering medical examiner. She knew he was faking; she saw his tells every time she spoke, his knuckles whitened infinitesimally as he gripped the straps of the flight seatbelt harness and his closed eyes twitched when she laughed.

Yeah, faking, sulking like a petulant teen and she was so over dealing with that crap. And anyhow, _nobody_ could sleep over the engine noise of the Seahawk chopper transporting them out to the USS Bainbridge, even with their headsets on muffling the external din, the thundering sound of the rotor-blades was deafening.

If that’s how he wanted to play it, fine, two could play that game!

She had nothing to be ashamed of!

After the initial shock of their vicious row passed, she had mulled over her actions and gradually her own anger seeped in.

How fucking _dare_ he say those things to her? She was only trying to do the right thing, to follow the law and ensure a safe arrest, _if_ Melden even was the killer. Nick had some neck expecting her to lie about hearing the ‘confession’ and not for the first time she wondered why he insisted _she_ go with him to the Captain’s house.

Did he expect her to roll over and corroborate his story no questions asked? Was he using their personal connection to ensure she backed him up? Gibbs wouldn’t have, and neither would McGee. The evidence chain and procedure were sacrosanct for a reason; to prevent wrongful convictions or dismissal of a trial. Technicalities mattered. Even abhorrent suspects like Melden were assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Her stomach rolled again and it wasn’t just the dipping and banking of the chopper as it passed through a squall, no it was the horrible queasiness that she couldn’t shake off just thinking that Nick had maybe tried to dupe her, manipulate her and that went against _everything_ she believed about him to the core of her soul.

She knew Nick, he wouldn’t do that, not to her, right?

She still wasn’t sure what had happened between Nick and Melden that day and that uncertainty had cost her their relationship. That still hurt, it stung her more than she was willing to admit to. She still couldn’t believe that after everything, when she thought, believed they were…well, she knew how she felt about him…But he had just thrown her away, cut her out of his life and shunned her without a second thought.

It still shocked her that they had fallen at the first hurdle, that their first argument was their last.

She really had believed their relationship was _more_ , more than a mere flirtation between co-workers, more than a short fling. The ‘taking their time’ thing was them building a strong foundation for something permanent. They hadn’t had sex or said those three little words, but she _believed_ their feelings for each other were deep, caring…foolishly she thought it was love.

So yeah, she was furious with him that he could be so offhanded and cavalier with her affection and she was incandescent with rage he had spoken to her like that!

There was one thing he said that day though that still curdled her guts, played on her mind and kept her awake at night.

 _‘Because if he kills another kid it’s on you!’_ Nick had meant every excoriating word and now she wondered was he right?

What if another child was taken and killed because of her? What if her word, or lack of it in fact, gave a monster a loophole that he used, making him untouchable now without incontrovertible evidence? At this rate they would literally need to catch him red-handed before the top brass would let him be even questioned again, never mind charged!

Ellie had made it her business to get the evidence needed, even though the FBI had officially taken the case. She had friends, ways and means to ‘acquire’ her own case file of everything the FBI had, not strictly legal and the irony of bending the law to prove Nick hadn’t bent the law was not lost on her. Even if there was nothing salvageable of their romance – and her breath caught just thinking about that fact, she could and would surreptitiously work the case. She wanted to prove Nick was right about Melden, that she did believe in him and his judgement, as his _partner_ she owed him that.

She couldn’t let it go.

Nick didn’t need to know and she certainly wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of ‘I told you so’ if she did find anything. It wasn’t about Nick…not really, it was about proving a killer could be caught the _right_ way. Integrity and veracity were paramount in upholding the law, criminals stooped to unfathomable depths, but they, law enforcers, had to morally, ethically, rise above or be condemned to wallow in the mire with them.

Another hour landed them on the ship and the three of them were immediately taken to the Master at Arms who had been protecting the scene of the obvious murder. Petty Officer Andrea Keating had been stabbed in the chest sometime during the night and bled out alone, in the dark, in the personal baggage stores in the bowels of the ship. There were no witnesses, no discernible motive and Ellie glumly estimated almost 300 potential killers on board that would need to be whittled down through interviews, interrogations and comparing statements against rosters…days of work unless Jimmy got a break with something interesting from the autopsy.

The scene was processed and the body bagged up, ready for transport with Jimmy back to DC after only a few hours but it was already late. By unspoken agreement both she and Nick had started taking statements in the officer’s lounge, getting a feel of the personality of the apparently well-liked Keating and discerning if she had any beefs with anyone on board. Nada!

It was only when they were shown to the allocated Agent Afloat stateroom that she realised there was a problem. The Destroyer-Class vessel was at full personnel capacity, she and Nick would be sharing the _very_ snug cabin that barely had room for the fold-down desk and a chair along with the bunk rack beds. The option was available for one of them to bunk in with either the female or male sailors in the lower-deck racks but both declined, sharing with him had to be better than sharing a compact, noisy, probably malodorous room with twenty other strangers.

Nick said nothing and just threw his backpack up onto the top bunk, claiming that one as his own without asking. In fairness she would never have been able to hoist herself up into it easily, the bunk being almost head-height to her, but she grizzled at the lack of civility.

The sulky silent treatment was so juvenile.

A couple of days, she could do this! She just had to put some ground rules in place. They needed to keep things professional to get the job done. Clearing her throat, she addressed him in a firm, nonchalant tone.

‘So, I guess we should split up, take a watch each for statements to get through them faster. I can do the night watch duty if you cover the day shift personnel?’

‘I can take the dark watch, I slept on the transporter,’ he responded coolly, his back to her as he pulled stuff out of his go-bag.

‘Mm-hum’ she answered doubtfully, knowing he was fibbing about sleeping on the flight.

‘ _What?_ You don’t _trust_ me to take statements alone, do you think I need a witness?’ he snapped back at her heatedly, his face twisted in ire.

‘I thought you _preferred_ to work alone for fear of your partner stabbing you in the back, but if _you_ think you need a chaperone maybe ask the Brig Officer’ she spat caustically, sitting down on her lower bunk. ‘Night watch started at 2200, I’ll relieve you at 0600’ she dismissed him by pulling out her laptop and hammering out her password on the keys, cutting off any further opportunity for discussion.

There was no room to avoid him, so she kept her eyes on her screen trying to regulate her breathing after her unexpected outburst but again from her lower position she noticed his knuckles blanching on his fists as he bit back whatever stunning retort he had lined up for her. Without another word, he left the cabin and she was alone. It was late and she hadn’t really had anything substantial to eat but she couldn’t face heading into the mess hall so she just pulled on her leggings and a tee-shirt and crawled under the starchy sheets, reviewing the post mortem notes of the three dead children again, not exactly light reading but necessary to take her mind off being annoyed with him. The gentle lolling of the ship eventually rocked her into a restless sleep.

She was gone out of the cabin before Nick got back the following morning, getting up at 5 am to shower and grab some breakfast, certain he would have woken her up if he caught a break in the case. She got through about forty more sailor statements and was none the wiser on the case. When she finished up for the evening, she headed for the canteen again in desperate need of caffeine and carbs. Lost in her own world reading over notes she was shaken out of her reverie by some noisy banter going on in the lounge, There was Nick, surrounded by other sailors having a great time cheering on some MMA fighters on the TV. He didn’t even look over at her as she returned her tray and had to walk past the group to exit towards the cabin. She noticed immediately his bunk was made up neatly and his stuff stowed. He had left a note on the table with the names of the crew he'd be interviewing that night-shift highlighted on the printed ship’s manifest, the note substituting the need for any face to face discussion of the case.

 _So, this is how it's going to be, passing each other like ships in the night_?

Three whole days of splendid isolation. Every shun, spurn and rejection was like death by a thousand tiny cuts. It hurt thinking that even their professional relationship was in tatters because their personal one had ended.

_Gibbs Rule 12, guess he was right about dating co-workers after all, huh?_

The next morning, she received a much-anticipated call from NCIS as Jimmy came back with some definitive DNA evidence that put one Ensign Peter Shaw in the spotlight for the murder. Ellie headed back to the cabin and took a steadying breath before she entered. The lights were off, the room in pitch darkness but it wasn’t difficult to make her way over to the sleeping Nick, curled up on the top bunk. His features were so placid and relaxed, every trace of the controlled, tautness of anger and resentment she had become accustomed to over the past week had faded. He was her Nick again. Her fingers itched to touch him...to gently brush his hair back from his forehead, to feel the rasp of his stubble, anything- even just to shake him awake but she bit back her need, instead calling him until he jerked into alertness.

‘B? I mean, um Bishop, what’s up?’ he asked through a yawn, scrubbing his palms over his jaw, generating a rough bristly sound that brought a blush to her own face and a hum somewhere further south.

‘Jimmy got a hit with the DNA from under her nails. Peter Shaw. Thought you’d want to know’ she mumbled stepping back from the bunks as he swung himself out. Thankfully, he was wearing a loose tee-shirt and jog pants, for her benefit she was sure as it was a running joke in the office that he liked to sleep naked. They had laughed about that together that night, when he had stayed over, sharing her bed, comforting each other, discovering each other and they had almost…nearly…and God she had wanted to…

‘Yeah, ok, give me a couple of minutes and we’ll go get him’ his words snapped her out of her trip down memory lane and she nodded mutely and went to grab some coffees while he changed.

She waited for him in the corridor and when he emerged dressed but exhausted-looking, she handed him the cup, fixed just how he liked it. He gave her the merest of nods in gratitude before she led the way to the Ensign’s workstation.

It didn’t take much to get a humdrum confession of violent jealousy and a lover’s tiff that ended in bloodshed and added to breaking the of rules regarding dating within the ranks, the guy was going down for a court-martial and a life sentence. After a discussion with the Commanding Officer, it was arranged for a chopper transport back to DC that evening with their detainee. Even with the ubiquitous paperwork, she had some hope of seeing her own bed by midnight which sounded just lovely as the weather was due to turn stormy and there was nothing nicer than snuggling under a duvet as it rained and howled. Nick seemed to be relieved they were getting off the ship too, obviously still preferring to keep his distance from her but at least they had proved they could get the job done.

Following procedure to the letter, they donned their flight safety helmets, orange suit and life jackets again and strapped into their seats. Without fuss, she cuffed Ensign Shaw to her wrist, and she noticed Nick bristle that he hadn’t taken on that chore himself but again he made no comment. They had company for the return flight, Lieutenant Matt Lucas, an Oklahoman like herself who was hitching a ride back to attend a Senate hearing regarding a mission that had gone pear-shaped a while back. Matt was all talk and it was nice to chat and while away the flight time in fun, witty conversation. It didn’t hurt that Matt was a dish, with a million-watt smile and grey-green eyes the colour of the ocean. The jovial Lieutenant tried to bring Nick into the conversation, but the blunt one-word replies to his friendly questions had the guy’s eyebrows raised at the uncalled-for hostility.

Only she knew it to be ridiculous, she would say Nick was jealous. He said nothing but she could tell by the angry set of his jaw that he was vexed maybe even envious at their easy banter and warm rapport.

It all happened so fast, so completely without warning. She felt a sudden, sharp tug on the handcuff linking Shaw to her own wrist as he burst out of his harness restraint and fell onto Matt. There was a clamour as everyone reached for their weapons, but it was too late. A gun went off and Matt choked in pain slumping over, and instantaneously Shaw twirled around, pointing a handgun at her head.

‘Uncuff me, now’ he demanded, even as the flight crew up front shouted over the radio in her helmet for an update.

Nick had started to undo his own harness when Shaw swung his head towards him.

‘Move and she dies’ Shaw threatened, his voice tight with agitation, 'gun, on the floor kick it to me'. Ellie could almost see the rage pulsing in Nick’s veins as he complied with the order and she winced expecting the situation to worsen as soon as he opened his mouth.

But Nick surprised her, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture of surrender, ‘Hey calm down, dude! There’s no way out, so just hand over the gun before this gets any worse’ he told the guy reasonably. ‘We’re miles out to sea, in a fucking military chopper! You know this is stupid?’

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matt, bloodied and pale pull a blade from his boot.

‘I have the key’ she piped up, trying to get Shaw’s attention. Nick gave her a tiny shake of his head indicating not to take on the guy but she continued undaunted. ‘Um, it’s the protocol to keep it on my person. It’s um…in my…’, she replied evasively with her best air-head expression plastered on her face, hoping to give the guys enough time to hatch out their plan.

Shaw aimed the gun straight at her. ‘Where’s the key, bitch?’ he barked at her, his spittle spraying her face.

A combination of events hit simultaneously.

The chopper lurched hard, turbulence dropping them several feet just as Matt slid the knife to Nick. Shaw lost his footing and stumbled forward crashing headfirst into Ellie, his helmet cracking against hers so hard it cut into her eyebrow and forcefully slammed her head against the metal bulkhead behind her. The jolting impact caused the gun to fire in his hand, the noise exploding right beside her ear, the spark blinding her. She tried to shake off the disorienting impact of his head collision, but everything blurred around her. Smoke, shouting, bodies flailing as they fell past her, Nick landing a jab with the knife into Shaw’s gut as they scuffled and all the while her wrist burned in pain, the steel cuff biting into her flesh as her arm was almost wrenched out of its socket. Bewilderingly her stomach was lifting and falling with a sensation just like being on a rollercoaster. She almost laughed as the daylight flickered and swirled and then she realised.

They were spinning out of control.

The helicopter was falling, the engine screeching as it stalled, and alarms bleeped and buzzed.

Voices hollered through the headset, ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Flight 06 Charlie Echo…Brace! Brace! Brace!’

They were about to crash into the sea.


	4. In over her head

She tasted a metallic saltiness in her mouth, a foul mixture of blood and ocean spray. She wasn’t sure what brought her around to consciousness, it could have been the icy cold of the water lapping against her chest, the pain of a hundred bruises that ached across her neck, back and ribs or the echoey, far-off sound of Nick frantically calling her name over and over. Even as panic blasted through her and she began to shiver violently, she tried to concentrate on his voice and ignore all the other crazy stuff going on around her, but she couldn’t see him. Her eyes darted left to right and all she could see was churning dark water flooding in through the fuselage of the chopper, and equipment and detritus swirling around with the current of the rapidly filling space.

Then she saw an orange-suited body floating face-down towards her and her breath came out in a sobbing whoosh.

‘Nick! _Nick!_ ’ she screamed, spluttering out the seawater that washed into her gaping mouth. Her hands scrambled to her seatbelt buckle but the ‘quick-release’ was jammed and her freezing, clumsy fingers just wouldn’t cooperate. Coughing she spat out more water and tried to reach out for the body.

_Please don’t be him!_

Her right hand was restrained, held back somehow under the waterline. _Shit, the handcuff!_ Shaw was obviously wedged somewhere below her, and she was attached to him!

Raw panic welled within her, she was alone, trapped in a sinking helicopter but suddenly a dark head surged up from the water in front of her, causing her to scream in fright.

‘Nick!’ she gulped in relief that he was ok and she tried to calm the sobs shuddering through her chest.

‘ _Ellie!_ ’ his panicked voice sounded shrill to her ears. ‘Are you hurt?’ his two cold palms cupped her face, brushing back the wet strands of her hair that trailed over her cheeks as he rapidly inspected her for injury.

‘No, I’m ok, I think. Nick, I can’t undo the harness! And the handcuff!’ she spluttered, coughing when the waves slapped her nose and mouth. He ran his hands down her torso trying to use brute strength to force the buckle, but to no avail, so he dove under the surface to gauge her predicament. She could feel his fingers assess the seatbelt straps and the cuff and then he emerged, wiping the rivulets of water from his serious face.

‘Ellie, I have a knife but it’s going to take time to cut through stuff to get you out’ he explained tightly. ‘The chopper is sinking. The water is going to cover your head before I can get you out’ his voice was thick and edged with fear.

This was _not_ good, and she just knew it wouldn't end well…for her, but maybe _he_ had a chance.

‘Just go Nick, get yourself out!’ she exclaimed urgently.

‘I'm _not_ leaving you.’ His angry tone at the mere suggestion told her not to bother to repeat it.

‘Listen to me. It’ll take a few minutes, but I can keep you alive underwater that long, or however long it takes’. His deft fingers were at her throat, releasing the clip of her helmet and pulling it off, freeing up her neck so she could tilt her head back and carry on gasping some more glorious mouthfuls of air.

Spitting water, she shook her head. ‘What are you talking about?’ she croaked, the saltwater had burned her throat until her raspy voice sounding foreign to her ears.

The weight of internal surf suddenly crashed against her chest and they both froze as the metal of the fuselage groaned and creaked, the whole helicopter tilting some more. He climbed to up on the seat beside her as her horrified swearwords dissolved under the sound.

‘Artificial respiration, rescue breathing. I'll breathe for both of us, you'll get enough oxygen from me’ he explained quickly. ‘Just don't panic. Don't laugh or cry, or you could start choking, understand?’ The sea was rising over her chin, she had to strain to keep her ears above it.

‘Nick, I’m scared!’ she managed to pant out, the water was millimetres from her mouth and nose now.

‘Give me your hand’ he demanded. When she opened her mouth to speak, Nick snapped, ‘Don't talk now, just breathe. But try not to hyperventilate or you'll be dizzy when you go under. This _will_ work. If you get any water in your mouth, swallow it right away. You have to trust me. I'll get you enough air. Trust me, Ellie, I won’t let anything happen to you’ he promised her fiercely, reassuring her by squeezing her cheek with his hand for emphasis.

The sky flashed behind her reflecting in his anxious eyes and the first large, heavy raindrops began to fall hammering on the glass of the side-window now above her head. The whole carcass of the aircraft rose on the swell of a wave adding to the movement of the water lapping against her.

_Great! The storm had hit, as if they hadn’t enough problems!_

Nick scarcely appeared to notice; his concern was completely concentrated on her as he struggled to reposition her free hand that involuntarily flailed around. Eventually, she followed his lead as he made her grip his collar and as cold as she was, the flesh of his exposed neck felt warm against her fingers.

‘I won’t leave you’ he shouted again over the whipping up storm and raising sea-level which was fast separating them. ‘If you need air, just squeeze or scratch, dig your fingernails in, don't worry about hurting me. And don't let go.’

The last thing she heard, as the water closed over her head, was his voice begging urgently, ‘stay calm Ellie, I’ll get you out of this’. She shakily nodded in reply and watched as his face disappeared from view and she felt the tugging increase on her wrist as he did whatever he had to do to release her.

The silence underwater seemed unreal after the jumble of frantic noises above. The sea stung her nostrils and eyes, but not intolerably; it wasn't as harshly saline as it had smelled. She couldn't hear much, even the thunder was muffled, and she couldn't see anything clearly, but she did admire how her tresses of pale hair danced and pirouetted in the water. If it hadn't been for the cuff scraping and digging into her wrist, she might almost have felt at peace for a moment, floating there outside of space and time with his body against hers.

Then pressure began to build in her chest. She exhaled a little, watching the bubbles float away, and the tightness increased in her nose and throat, it hurt fiercely, and just when she thought she wasn't strong enough to fight it, his torso plunged level with hers, he lightly pinched her nose then his mouth covered her own, forcing his breath into her lungs--a little too gently, she sucked at him and then clamped her mouth shut. She felt an almost painful tug as he surfaced. It was not quite enough, her chest still ached, it was just going to get worse and worse, she was going to get lightheaded...then he was there again, breathing for her, more forcefully this time, his fingers tightly gripping her jaw. Water crept into her mouth and she forced herself to tear her hand from his collar, to hold her nose and swallow the acrid fluid.

_Just don't give up_ , she thought, to herself and of him.

She was cold to the bone now, not only from the water but from the deep terror rising within her; she ordered herself not to think, simply to focus on when he was returning.

‘ _I'm not leaving,_ ’ he had promised.

And he wouldn't, not even if he feared for his own safety, she _had_ to believe that, to trust him with her life in his hands.

She had total faith in him.

Her nails dug hard into the flesh around his neck, and he was there again. She tried to concentrate on what he must be feeling. The storm could capsize the chopper trapping him, lightening could electrocute him; she knew she should tear herself away and free him but her fingers twitched and he returned once more. She wanted to cling to him on an absurd chance that she could rise to the surface with him by will alone, but that was madness. She realised her brain function was becoming sluggish, strange thoughts and random memories flashed through her mind. Shaking herself she knew she had to stay awake, stay focused on holding her breath until his mouth was on hers again.

But she was so, so tired. It would be so gentle if she just drifted off to sleep…

_No!_ If she let go now she would die and he would blame himself, better to hang on a little longer let him do what he needed to do.

So much was at stake in the way they read one another's tiniest facial movements, it was far more intimate than kissing. He was trying to gauge how fully he was filling her lungs by pressing his arms against her sides as he exhaled into her, expanding her. Or maybe he just wanted to give her a hug, offer whatever comfort he could. Gratitude flooded her; she thought she would cry, but that would probably kill her, so she suppressed the feeling, there would be time for it _later_.

There would be time to think about what it meant that he would risk his own life to keep her alive in this manner, sharing his breath, later he would probably tease her about it, she almost chuckled, water dripped into her throat and she forced herself to swallow, swallow, no don't cough, wait for him, her chest was going to explode, and just then there was an awful disturbance in the water as the aircraft rolled, she shifted upwards and realized that he was cutting through her lap-straps of her seat harness.

She pulled her suddenly released hand up to her face, the other vacant end of the cuff now dangling free but then she saw it- a man’s severed hand, hacked-off at the wrist that floated in the current past her face and she couldn’t help it, she screamed in horror and water flooded into her mouth, choking her. Nick’s hands were on her face, but she hysterically pushed him away as terror gripped her, her chest burning in agony.

Then all the pain and fear just ebbed away, and the world faded into darkness.


	5. Salvage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a listen to Gavin James 'Always'...

_Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_

He was out of time! She was out of time!

He didn’t know what spooked her until Shaw’s hand bobbed up to the surface just like something from some macabre horror movie but for Ellie in her stressed-out, life-or-death state, it was enough to tip her over the edge.

_Fuck!_

But he’d no time now to berate himself for not telling her that his only option to free her was to carve off the guy’s hand. It was gross but he felt no guilt; the asshole was already a murderer and then he had shot her new best pal, Matt, in his futile escape-attempt. The thunderbolt of panic that hit Nick as Shaw had swung the gun back towards Ellie, the barrel no more than a foot away from her head, had still not faded.

Shaw’s misfire as he fell against her accidentally blew up the electronics board causing a complete engine malfunction. Nick had managed to disarm him in the melee and stabbed him at least once in the effort, but the idiot only went and got his neck broke on impact by the look of how his head lolled about at a horrible angle in the current. His demise was no loss to the world and would save the government a fortune in tax dollars keeping him in jail for the rest of his natural. _Win-Win!_

Nick saw the problem as soon as he dived under the water when Ellie reminded him about the handcuff. The crash had also impaled Shaw on a protruding steel support beam, there would be no budging him from where he was skewered. Nick knew he had a handcuff key in his backpack but that was stowed somewhere in all the chaos and the water level was rising too fast to go look for it now.

The bare bones of a risky plan were all he had…

Rescue breathing would keep her alive. He had been a pool lifeguard in college and had training in the technique but that was a long time ago, far removed from these dangerous conditions… and the resuscitation dummy he’d practised on wasn’t Ellie.

Even when executed in textbook fashion, rescue respiration was, at best, an extremely short-term measure. He had _minutes_ to free her and then they had to get out of the helicopter before were dragged down with it as it sunk into the dark depths of the ocean.

Out of options, out of time.

As soon as the water covered her face he dove down and started sawing through flesh and sinew with single-minded determination, no matter how his stomach rolled as waves of nausea hit him at the task.

He tried not to think about the feel of his lips on hers, concentrating all of his mind on gauging if he had given her enough air and counting the seconds in his head, anticipating when she would need another breath. The intervals got shorter as her oxygen-starved body craved more than his artificial efforts could provide. He could see the toll it was already taking on her; her body twitched and jerked with involuntary spasms, her movements slowed and her grip on his collar loosened. His own lungs heaved in the effort of breathing in the horrific rhythm; it must have been a thousand times worse for her.

As soon as Shaw’s hand was off, he moved on immediately to the seatbelt. He had five harness straps to cut through and then he’d be able to pull her out. He breathed into her again, his hands on her chest-wall assessing if her ribcage was inflating enough, a difficult job when her frame was so petite yet her jumpsuit and clothes were bulked out, saturated and swollen with water.

Two straps done and he had just started on the third when he felt her body suddenly convulse against him. Her arms and legs thrashed about wildly and as soon as he dove down under the water, he saw she was in full panic-mode. Air-bubbles exploded from her gaping mouth and even as he desperately tried to calm her, he knew it was too late. Seawater flooded in and he couldn’t continue with the rescue breaths without pushing more water into her lungs.

He needed to get her to the surface _now_. 

The textbooks say a body’s own protective reflexes should keep the lungs from being fully overwhelmed and the cold would slow her metabolism. He clung to those facts knowing what would happen next.

Her movements slowed and calmed, she twitched a couple of times and then she stilled. He stayed under the water holding her face, hoping on some level she knew he was with her. Bile surged up his throat as he watched Ellie slip into unconsciousness and there was absolutely nothing he could do for her.

Then she was gone, her open eyes staring into the water blankly.

Growling savagely he surfaced for just long enough to take a rapid breath and then he submerged again, his mind exploding in turmoil. He redoubled his efforts, hacking through the straps doggedly, all the while counting the seconds in his head. Thanking every saint with a silent prayer the fourth strap finally gave way and it was enough to pull her lifeless body from the seat and drag her towards the chopper door. The sinking cabin was submerged to the roof now, but he found an air-pocket and took one last deep lungful, tightening his grip on her life jacket before plunging down to the murky depths throwing everything he had at shouldering the sliding-door to open.

But it wouldn’t budge. For a moment he panicked that it might be controlled electronically and that whole system was completely fried.

50, 51, 52, 53… every second counted.

Then through the blurry opacity of the dark water, he saw a red emergency release lever and he forced it into the unlock position and tried the door again. Pure brute force won out, but the effort had excruciatingly wrenched his shoulder muscles and almost deadened his arm. Every vein and capillary in his body prickled with pain as the cold and the burning pressure to breathe stabbed him like a thousand pins but he held on to her limp body, pulled the toggles to inflate both their life-vests and assisted by the sudden buoyancy he clumsily swam towards the surface. The waves and current heaved and swirled around them and even with his death-lock grip on her she was suddenly dragged away. He pried his stinging eyes open under the murky grey-tinted water until he spotted her orange-clothed body being tossed around like a ragdoll.

Ellie was a mere ten feet away, but the power of the churning current made it seem like swimming a mile. He used his arms to propel himself towards her, pushing through the pain of his damaged shoulder. His hands reached for her arm as he broke to the surface, sucking in a breath of air and he tried not to gag as he choked on the salt in his throat. He gripped her jacket tightly in his hand as he flipped her body over in the water so her face was turned towards the sky. 

Nick touched Ellie's wet face, feeling it cold and morbidly still. He brushed a strand of golden hair from her face and leaned over her, tilted her jaw and closing her nose with a pinch, he closed his mouth over hers parting her cyanosed lips gently and forced his breath into her lungs.

It was different this time. Before she had reacted to their shared breathing, almost sucking the air from him like a he was scuba mouthpiece. Now she was sickeningly lifeless, horrifically inert but he refused to accept she was gone.

Another breath, wait, repeat. Five rescue breaths and nothing, no response.

Alarm-bells rang in his head but he tried again, fighting against his fear and the surge of the tide around them.

Five more respirations; nothing.

He dug his fingers into her neck, but they were too numb with cold to really ascertain if she had a carotid pulse and at this point, he had nothing to lose. He couldn’t lay her down on a firm surface so instead he flipped her around pulling her back to his chest and caught her in a reverse bear hug. Gripping his fist with his other to her chest just between her breasts he started adapted compressions, trying his best to adjust for the bulk of the suit and the inflated life jacket.

Thirty pushes, two breaths, repeat.

Every moment he second-guessed, criticised and judged his actions, warring with himself over ‘what ifs’ and ‘do differents’, all the while counting out the steady pace of his compression thrusts. His eyes stung with tears and even as he begged her to wake up. He was giving up hope until finally, he must have done something right because just as he started in on the third cycle of CPR Ellie gasped, coughing and spitting out water.

‘ _Yes!_ That’s it, come on, B!’ Elated and breathless with exhaustion, he wrapped his arms around her waist and tilted her head back against his shoulder until the choked spluttering and retching coughs eased. He ran his hand over her face again and again to clear the rain and sea spray, and wipe around her mouth of the slimy bile that she hurled up as she tried to rid her body of the swallowed and inhaled brine. He had to shout over the noise of the surrounding stormy wind and choppy sea until he finally got a reassuring response as she hiccupped violently and croaked his name.

‘Ellie, breathe, just try to catch your breath. I gotcha, you're ok, just breathe’

Her head bobbed understanding and he felt her squirm against him turning herself until she faced him, and she gripped her arms around his neck, her nails scratching his flesh as she clung on to him. She was sobbing now, her chest shuddering in an unsteady cadence of crying, gasping and coughing.

Nick was beyond relieved to see that she was breathing, her chest rising and falling fast against his own, and her deathly, bluish pallor fading to her more normal shade of pinky-pale.

She was ok and he took a second for himself to swallow down and let go of the adrenaline-fuelled surge of terror that still threatened overcome him.

_Too close!_

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked her worriedly, touching her face gently with his water-pruned hands. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked again as the words were whipped away from his lips by the howling wind.

‘Yeah, I’m…fine’ she managed before the coughing started again. When she eventually caught her breath again her brown eyes stared at him, confused, fearful and looking around, she shuddered.

And he remembered, they weren’t out of danger yet.

‘What happened Nick?’

‘Shaw shot out an electrical control panel, we were lucky the crew managed to land it _on_ the water’

‘Is it just us? Are we the only survivors?’

‘Shaw was killed on impact. Matt, well he’s dead too. I’m not sure about the two crewmen upfront but I think they got out’ he glanced over to the stricken aircraft, only the tip of the rear rotary blade was above the waterline now and even that was a couple of hundred metres away as the current had pulled it along. He thought about trying to swim back to check the cockpit but regretfully decided against.

Ellie was his priority. He needed to save his energy to keep her afloat, maybe for the long-haul.

Nick suddenly worried about the strength of the growing storm around them, the pull and tug against their conjoined bodies was unrelenting. He carefully wound his legs around hers and threaded his arm through her life vest holding her in a firmer grip. Still, he worried she would be washed away from him and she was in no condition to have the strength to hold on for an extended amount of time. So, without asking because he knew she’d find some logical reason to object he grabbed the cuff still draggling from her wrist and clacked it onto himself.

‘Nick! Why did you do that?’ she blurted incredulously, probably due to the very recent memory of the fate of the last guy cuffed to her.

‘We need to stick together Ellie; the storm surge is too strong. I can’t lose you…in the current. It’ll be easier for the rescue team to find us if we’re together’

‘Do you think anyone will come for us, before…?’

‘Bishop, they’ll come, the pilot got a Mayday out, they’ll come’ he reassured her, but his mind started his internal stopwatch again. It was already dusk and the water was too cold; they only had a limited amount of time before hypothermia became a serious factor for both of them but he wasn’t telling her that.

Ellie quietened for a while, but he knew by the way she chewed on her chapped bottom lip that her mind was whirring through options and outcomes. He was about to offer to be her sounding board when an errant wave crashed over them, the awful pull downwards to fathomless depths, drifting, washing over, suffocating, swishing, being dragged under… despite his grip, she was wrenched away from him and the handcuff became a lifeline. 

They were both left spluttering and hocking up saltwater. Terrified and wide-eyed she almost clawed her way back to him. He tightened his own embrace around her and pulled her close until he realised her legs were straddling his waist, her ankles locked around the small of his back. His mind went back to a dream he’d had of them positioned like this except then they’d had way fewer clothes and they weren’t freezing their butts off in the Atlantic! She moved against him again and in the process, she jostled his shoulder which was so painful now that he let out a hissing yelp.

‘What? Nick, are you hurt, were you shot?’ she had barely gotten her breath back and he could see her eyes dart over him as she assessed him for damage.

‘No, it’s ok, I just strained a muscle maybe’

‘Niiick?’ she dragged out his name in that chastising tone she used when he was fudging. ‘You should have said you’re in pain, it’s obviously not ‘ok’,’ she adjusted herself in his lap to take her weight off his injured shoulder. 

‘Really, it’s not too bad’ but his grimace as he shrugged reflexively told a different story. 

‘Nick, I know when you're lying’ she cajoled him innocently, but his temper flared at the allegation.

‘Oh, we’re back to _that_ , huh? I said I’m fine so quit nagging, you’re not my wife!’ he snapped back and regretted his harsh words immediately as she flinched back in humiliated shock and hastily loosened her grip of his neck. When he felt her legs unlace from around him and he grabbed her hips to stall her.

‘Don’t! Please, look I’m sorry!’ he apologised earnestly as he tightened his grip on her and blew out his cheeks. ‘I’m just… I’ve had better days, you know, not enough coffee or something’ he replied dryly with the smirkiest grin he could muster.

She forced a tiny smile and nodded silently but he could see her chin wobble as she was close to tears. She turned her face away from him and he felt thoroughly ashamed of himself.

 _Fuck Torres!_ They hadn’t spoken in three weeks and here they were lassoed together, adrift and alone in the middle of the ocean and he still couldn’t let it go.

They floated together in silence, intermittently coughing as a stray wave inundated them. He stealthily checked his watch; it was over an hour since the helicopter crashed they had at least another to get through before help would come either from the mainland or some other Navy vessel in the vicinity.

‘Ellie?’ He nudged her back but only got a grunt ‘Ellie? You still with me?’ he called her with more urgency. Her head was heavy on his good shoulder and he just about heard her whispered response ‘I’m tired’.

This was exactly what he was afraid of. Bad enough she should have been hospitalised immediately after her near-drowning earlier for supplementary oxygen and medications to combat the damage to her infiltrated lungs but now it was a toss-up between that and hypothermia that had her drifting off in drowsiness.

This was bad.

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. ‘Keep talking to me. Please.’

‘Ok Nick’ she mumbled but he knew she had fallen back asleep again.

It was pitch dark now and his mind ran through every worst-case scenario; that the squall would whip up again, that the Mayday wasn’t even received, that Search and Rescue would wait until daylight …that she wouldn’t make it till then.

In the far distance, he saw lightning strikes hit the surface of the ocean.

_Fuck!_

Maybe it was better she slept through the coming storm? He was running on empty, exhausted, as whatever adrenaline he’d mustered over the past hours had completely waned. For the first time in his life, he was truly afraid he was going to die. Keeping Ellie alive had given him a purpose, a goal to strive for. If it was too late, if she was slipping away regardless, well, he didn’t see much point getting himself out of this mess without her.

He looked back out over the waves and tried counting the seconds between lightning flashes to give some clue of how far away the next barrage of the storm was.

_What the hell?_

The motion of rising and falling with each wave crest and trough must have screwed up his perception or this weather was _way_ weird!

No, not flashes of lightning… _beams_!

Beams of light, search-lights!

‘Ellie, wake up! Come on, look they’re here!’ he panted jubilantly.

He shook her until she grumbled incoherently and then shifted her so he was facing her, combing her cold, wet hair away from her face and tapping her cheek to rouse her some more. ‘Come on Ellie, we’re almost home and dry babe!’

‘Don’t call me babe’ she complained groggily, and his heart leapt in relieved delight.

Only a few minutes later there was no denying the distinctive booming sound of heavy chopper engines and Nick whooped triumphantly as the cavalry arrived. The airborne floodlights illuminated the whole area around them, and he waved until they flashed the beam twice to signal they’d spotted them. With the flickering light above them Nick could see just how close a call it was for Ellie, she mutely rested her head on his shoulder, her face pale and slack, too weak to even get excited about their rescue. Suddenly remembering the image of the water closing over her face earlier, when he had to watch her stop breathing, his stomach lurched, emotion finally overwhelming him and moving him to tears.

‘Your lips are blue,’ he choked out, running his numb fingers over them. Impulsively he kissed her, his own mouth stiff and chilled like hers. She tasted of salt and the sea. 

‘You saved me’ she smiled shakily, then she lifted her head and her lips brushed across his. ‘Can we get pizza?’ she muttered drowsily as if totally oblivious to the deafening drone of the chopper, the sea-spray the down-draft whipped up and the rescue crewmen dropping into the sea just metres from them with all their equipment.

‘Bishop, babe, we can get whatever you want!’ he hollered over the cacophony, as he clutched her limp body to his own, determined not to let go come hell or high water.


	6. Tsunami

Something metal and icy cold being shoved under her breast woke her up with a start, but her stinging eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the bright light glaring down from above. A stranger’s face appeared over her, stethoscope in her ears, ordering Ellie to take another deep breath. Satisfied the stranger tucked the crinkly silver foil sheet back around her shoulders.

Hospital, she was in a hospital guessing by the electronic beeps of monitors, the tangy smell of disinfectant and the ruthless efficiency of the fingers probing, prodding and poking her. Voices surrounded her calling for an alphabet soup of tests CBC, ABG, LFTs, Chem 7 and rattled out lists of random numbers, percentages, units of measure that made no sense to her. She was good with numbers, she liked patterns and sequencing…

She zoned out a bit, luxuriating in the comfortable warmth of heavy blankets until a raking cough almost turned her inside out. A sudden stabbing pain shot through her so bad she vomited up a mouthful of salty slime which was sucked away by a hard plastic catheter that reminded her of being at the dentist and then an oxygen mask was over her face again. More shouting around her but she drifted off completely unable to stay awake but knowing she had something urgent she needed to know.

It was all so confusing, and she was so tired and it was warm here…

When she woke again the mask was gone, replaced by nasal prongs that whistled cold dry oxygen up her nose, irritating and tickling her in equal measure. She was propped up now with a mountain of pillows behind her on a narrow stretcher in a sickbay aboard a ship going by the painted metal, bulkheaded walls and spaghetti of conduit pipes running along the ceiling. The monitors beeped a rhythmic staccato heartbeat and she could hear her own raspy breath crackling through her lungs on each inspiration. There was another sound though and it took her a couple of seconds to figure out that it wasn’t coming from her own body.

A snore…masculine…loud and close by.

Lifting her head, she spotted him. Nick, fast asleep slouched on a chair, his arms crossed and his chin buried on his chest snoring, oblivious to the noise and activity in the room. He was wearing some standard-issue Navy sweats and she noticed that he had an icepack on his shoulder and a pillow elevating his right arm from the elbow.

_That shoulder strain was worse than he was letting on!_

But he was ok, he was here with her and even as she drifted off, sinking deeper into sleep that thought kept floating to the surface of her consciousness.

He was safe and he was here with her.

It was impossible to know day from night in sickbay, always-on bright artificial lights, ever-changing staff, continuous humming and alarming equipment. When Ellie finally felt awake, like really awake, she grilled the first medic that came to assess her.

‘Hey Agent Bishop, back in the land of the living, huh? I’m Lieutenant Megan Dillon, your nurse for today but I reckon the Medical Officer will discharge you to your own rack later’

‘Um, _where_ am I exactly?’

‘Oh, jeez right! Well, you and your partner were airlifted back to us here on the Bainbridge’ the thirty-something auburn-haired nurse explained whilst pressing a button that inflated the blood pressure cuff uncomfortably on her upper arm. ‘You had us worried for a while, low O2 levels, wet lung, hypothermia but you’ve remained stable now for over twenty-four hours and apart from the chest infection and the cracked ribs you're doing well’ she smiled reassuringly as she pegged a pulse-oximeter onto another of her fingers.

‘Cracked ribs?’

‘Yeah, Agent Torres had to do CPR on you, rib injuries are very common’.

‘Where’s Nick, Agent Torres?’ Ellie blurted anxiously, flicking her eyes to the now vacant plastic chair at the foot of her trolley, feeling horribly guilty that _that_ hadn’t been her first question.

‘You mean your security detail’ she smirked, ‘Commander MacGerty, the Medical Officer ordered him to his room rack for rest. He refused to go but someone called Gibbs made a call and he eventually left here late last night, maybe around midnight or thereabouts’. The nurse had that smirky sceptical look your mom gets when they know the truth but you're still busy denying everything.

Ellie rolled her eyes, of course, Gibbs had to order him to rest, damn superhero complex! ‘Is he ok?’

‘Yeah, he’s fine. Rotator cuff injury, exhaustion, mild hypothermia. You guys were lucky. The pilot and flight crewman were picked up drifting a couple of kilometres southwest of where you were extracted, airlifted to the USS Arkansas but I believe they are both recovering. They um, recovered the body of Lieutenant Lucas. Shaw has been designated lost at sea’ she added her face awash with distaste even mentioning the latter’s name.

Ellie nodded along to all the information, trying to process and amalgamate all the events with her fragmentary memories.

‘How long have I been here?’ 

‘Just over forty-eight hours, we’ll be in port tomorrow’ she nodded over to a large digital clock mounted behind her on the wall. 0635, breakfast time hopefully!

‘Port? What port?’

‘Mayport, Florida. From what I’ve heard you’ll be flying back to DC tomorrow night from the base’. She shifted into professional mode briskly. ‘Now before you get out of here you need to practice some exercises to keep your lungs clear. We do not want pneumonia though it’s probably best to expect a respiratory tract infection of some type with the seawater infiltration and the rib fractures so let’s try to use this incentive spirometer and practice supported coughing’.

She spent the next half hour repeating the sucking and blowing into the plastic gadget until she could get at least two of the green baubles to rise but it was exhausting and sent her into fits of coughing. Her throat felt like she was swallowing past coarse dry sandpaper and her chest still wheezed and crackled with each breath.

Later that evening, satisfied she could walk, talk and eat without too much difficulty she was escorted to the Agent Afloat cabin she had shared with Nick before their ‘adventure’. She was disappointed as Nick wasn’t in his rack, she was buzzing with nervous tension that only talking to him could ease.

He had kissed her, that much she remembered…and she had kissed him back just before they were winched out of the water. Everything else after that was fuzzy but she knew he had stayed with her in sickbay. That had to mean she was forgiven. She wondered if she still angry with _him_ or had this whole incident put everything between them into perspective. He had risked his life to save hers, and he had saved her, she pondered on how dire the situation must have been for her to need CPR. Her chest tightened and her heart rate rocketed again just thinking about being trapped under the water, relying on Nick for every breath. Her hands started shaking and a cold sweat gathered under her breasts. Attempting to calm herself she relaxed back on her bed until she heard a tell rustle. Pulling back the starchy pillow she found a treasure trove of her favourite chocolate candy bars and a couple of red lollipops.

Nick did this!

She couldn’t help the smile that broke across her face. He really was the sweetest guy and she was crazy to think he’d manipulated her somehow with the Melden case. Their whole relationship had stuttered to a stop because of that bastard and, innocent or guilty, she couldn’t let him come between them. They had both been angry and hurt but they had both been neck-deep in the horrible, emotive investigation.

Surely, they could rise above and work it out? They just needed to talk it through, forgive the harsh words, right?

Nurse Dillon had put together a collection of toiletries for her and she took the opportunity to shower, washing away some of the briny residue from her skin and stiff hair until she almost felt like herself again. After that, she ambled slowly to the mess-hall hoping to see Nick there or in the next-door TV room but no luck.

She snagged a battered copy of _Persuasion_ from the lounge bookshelf _;_ all her stuff, even her laptop was lost with her go-bag when the Seahawk went down. She was determined to stay awake though until Nick came back to their cabin as soon as he was finished being grilled about the crash most likely. Pulling on her standard-issue grey tee-shirt and shorts kindly supplied by the laundry stores, she crawled into bed, exhausted from even the tiny amount of activity she’d managed. Her eyes blurred in tiredness reading the small font on the yellowed pages and lulled by the comfortable warmth of her bunk, the vibrating hum of the engines and the rocking motion ship as the hull cut through the waves she drifted into a restless doze.

She fought against it but still, she fell in and out of a sleep so fathomless it was like being trapped again. Unable to wake up fully when the nightmare threatened, unable to stop from drifting off back into the depths afterwards, jolting into semi-consciousness, her perception of reality distorted.

The ocean was a boiling cauldron, a maelstrom of churning, tossing, swirling water, whitecapped and angry, crashing heavily against her chest until she was gasping for air. The sky was darkest grey, hanging heavy and menacingly over her, a deluge of rain stung the skin of her face, obscuring her vision and chilling her to the bone then the sky exploded with forks of blinding light crackling across the horizon illuminating the vastness of the sea-surface she was fighting to keep her head above. The Sargasso Sea, alive with seaweed and vines floating around her, tangling her up and dragging her down. One of the vines was tangling toward her arm and she swatted it away in a sinking panic, her breath scorched in her constrained lungs again. Every time she almost escaped, she found herself suffocating, screaming face down in the pillows, blankets knotted like vines around her legs…

‘Bishop? _Ellie_! Wake up, it’s ok, you're safe’ his hands shook her awake, then soothed her, his strong warm hands tracing circular motions on her shoulder blades until she bolted upright into his arms grunting in sudden pain as her ribs protested.

‘It’s just a dream B, just a dream, go back to sleep’.

Still panting from fright and discomfort Ellie blinked open her eyes and in the dim light from his tiny reading light above, she found Nick sitting on the edge of her bed, similarly attired as herself. Suddenly embarrassed she drew her arms back from where she had draped herself around his neck. Red-faced, she nodded and distractedly tucked her wayward hair behind her ears and dropped her hands accidentally landing them both on his bare thighs. He grunted in protest; her hands admittedly were freezing cold but he didn’t flinch, his lips moving silently as he rolled his eyes heavenward and she wondered was it really a protest at all? Perplexed and flustered she left her hands where they were.

‘You ok now?’ he asked softly, his gaze flicking from her hands to her wide eyes.

She nodded still not trusting her voice but then changed her mind and shook her head as she stifled a hiccuping sob, fighting back the tears threatening to betray her anxiety. She swallowed down the swell of fear, the salty taste of the wild sea of her nightmare still in her mouth.

‘Can you…will you stay, here, with me, until I fall asleep? Please?’ she asked timidly as she shivered though the room was warm, unaccountably frightened of being alone.

He didn’t say a word he just stood and grabbed his pillow from his bunk and scooched in beside her as she pulled back the sheets. Ship bunks are really not made for two and as she gingerly adjusted her position so that she could face the wall to let Nick spoon in behind her, his hand already on her hip, she let out a low barely audible ‘ow’.

‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ he whispered, his low voice gravelly with remorse.

‘Nick?’ she froze, trembling yet puzzled. Was this going to be the moment they talked it all out? She was so tired, did she even have the energy to rehash their argument, dredging up the details of the child murderer case and everything nasty and hurtful that had been said between them?

‘With the compressions cracking your ribs, I misjudged, I’m sorry’ he clarified dolefully, his forehead tapping a beat against her shoulder as his fingers cautiously grazed her injured ribcage.

‘Nick, you saved my life! You have nothing to apologise for’ she told him emphatically as she threaded her fingers under her arm until she found his hand and interlaced her own small cold fingers with his, squeezing his thick digits to assure him of her veracity.

‘You, you were _gone_ … I had to try but I was too rough’ his voice cracked with emotion and biting down hard on her lip she pushed past the discomfort and she turned herself around to face him, tentatively brushing her fingertips over his jaw to comfort him.

‘Nick, stop, you did _everything_ right! I’m here because of you’ Her hands cupping his face suddenly felt damp with his tears.

_What must he have suffered alone in the ocean with my lifeless corpse?_ She shuddered just thinking about if the roles had been reversed.

They stared at one another for a long minute, in the dim light she could just make out the flurry of emotions chasing across his features before his burst of movement startled her as he crushed her in his arms so forcefully that she almost couldn't breathe but she wouldn’t complain. He crumpled against her, sobbing her name like a whispered prayer and it came as a new shock when he began to kiss her, his hands moving over her body taking possessive inventory. His breath was still coming in shudders, his eyes closed as his mouth found hers. She remembered vaguely that she should stop him but didn't know why.

He was lost, he was being dragged under, she couldn't push him away when he needed her like this.

She did not want to.

She was so tired of waiting.

His mouth was harsh and hard, soft and supple on hers, alternating in equal measure, mirroring her own hungry motions. Her rib pain and his shoulder injury were forgotten as her fingernails dug relentlessly into the knotted muscles of his neck and back, stroking the short hairs of his scalp as her eyes fell closed. They were both breathless as they impatiently fumbled with clothes in an urgent struggle that stemmed from a desire to confirm that the flesh was warm and solid underneath. The snare of arms and legs they had become while negotiating the narrow cot, feeling the intimacy as they strained towards each other, the heat they generated, was everything she wanted.

There was only Nick, the heat of his skin, the desperate need to be closer to him, to fit herself against him. Every movement of his body against hers sent an electrical storm searing along her nerves. Goosebumps rose all over her as she felt his hot breath on the sensitive surface of her neck followed swiftly by his the rasping roughness of his stubble and his suckling, teasing lips.

She couldn’t identify the moment when she became conscious of him thrusting his hardness into her, rough and deep enough to cause friction burns, or when she was aware of her own body softening, spreading and stretching around him, having enticed him in. They’d been joined for several moments, their hips moving in counterpoint before she comprehended with a jolt that they had physically closed the distance between them while attempting to crawl inside one another's skin. Nick was filling her, moving inside her, hard and forceful like he wanted to push himself through her. He’d leave bruises on her fleshy inner thighs, but she wanted them, she craved his passion that would mark her body as his. She tilted her hips to meet him and clawed his buttocks urging him to pound her deeper, harder and he moaned from the back of his throat like an animal, the sound vibrating through his chest pressed possessively against her own.

The ebb and flow quickened as he moved faster within her. It was an intoxicating, heady thrill and her halting breathing fell into sync with the building tidal wave, her hips rocking to it, she became the rhythm as her knees bent to raise her legs higher and she gave herself up to it. Her hands splayed above her on the headboard pushing her body back against him, her thighs pressed against his sides, his weight centred on her, the connection electric. His eyes did not leave hers as she undulated under him, beginning to convulse in quick violent bursts. Her entire being trembling with the pulsing thrusts until the final shaking crescendo tore through her, reverberating while she came and came in waves of pleasure, crying with the joy of it even as his hand gently tried to muffle her shrill exclamations. Her body jolted against his chest as she felt his lunging hips stall and twitch just before his liquid warmth flooded her. She could hear the wheezing catch in her own breathing as his hot breaths panted out her name in his collapse on her shoulder.

In the dark, in the silence, entangled in bedsheets and her own hair, opening her mouth to welcome back the moist, salty taste of his skin, his lips, his tongue…for a moment it was so like being submerged the water with him again, that elemental need for Nick to share his breath with her rushed through her anew.

She was alive, he was alive, they were together, that was what mattered, not the fights or cross words, not the case or their jobs or the thousand other minor complications which had been keeping them apart. She locked her arms around him and pulled her tired, bruised body against his as he tightened his grip on her until eventually they slept still knotted together.


	7. Safe harbour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oíche Shamhna Shona daoibh, Happy Halloween everyone!

He was going to need another jar.

As he sat on his sofa, alone, with a Champions League match on the TV he wasn’t really watching, his eyes fell again onto the glass jar Kasie had given him last year. The green-tinged liquid inside it was probably a health hazard by now but it was a visual reminder of something he didn’t want to lose. He knew back then how he felt about Ellie. Almost losing her in that pond should have been enough for him to fess up his feelings but no, he had arsed about until she kissed him in that bar just a month ago.

Almost losing her in the ocean had been enough for him to shelve his anger and resentment over their argument. He knew now what he felt about Ellie wouldn’t go away and he hoped she felt the same.

He was going to need another jar!

He sure as hell hadn’t expected to be sitting alone drinking beer tonight! He wasn’t mad, he kinda chuckled to himself that _she_ was miffed and for once it wasn’t at him! He was absolutely exhausted, like bone-weary drained, so much so he reckoned even the effort of hauling his ass to bed seemed as insurmountable a task as climbing Everest at that moment. Physically unable and unwilling to move, his mind wandered over the events since their rescue…more specifically last night. Those events played on loop and as tired as he was his body, his… he glanced down to see, yup -his boy, was twitching valiantly, miraculously resurrected like Lazarus! He took another slug of his beer and laughed at his dick’s optimistic perseverance!

Nick hadn’t always felt so chipper, only a couple of days ago he feared the worst.

She had been so ill on arrival to the medical bay of the Bainbridge, with a plethora of equipment wires attached like tentacles, all alarming, ringing and bleeping, staff scurrying around shouting orders over each other while they stripped her out of her wet clothes. She had a small cut on her eyebrow, the bleeding had leeched under her skin blooming into a shiner. An array of angry marks matching his own crisscrossed her wrist from the handcuffs. The rescue crew had snapped off them with a bolt-cutter, separating them and he didn’t like the loss of connection between them, the sudden distance between them felt like an uncomfortable void, it unnerved him to even think about not having her in his eye-line.

As they rolled her over onto her side so she could puke up seawater again his eyes homed in on her naked chest. That’s when he saw it, the fist-shaped purple bruise on her sternum.

The medics paid no heed to it, but the image was burned in his mind and he replayed the CPR over and over as he stripped himself and pulled on dry sweats in the curtained bay next to her. Behind the thin, floral fabric, he listened intently as the team called out results. The bloods he had no idea about, but he heard the Xray report of two fractured ribs surmised to be because of resuscitation efforts.

Yeah, she was alive but he had hurt her.

In a daze he let the medics examine him, refusing the sling for his shoulder as unnecessary and rejecting their pleas for him to rest on a stretcher in the neighbouring infirmary room.

Nope. Staying with Bishop.

Eventually, they realised he wasn’t going to budge even as he stood swaying and grey-faced with fatigue on guard duty at the end of her bed so they pulled over a chair made him sit and gave him an icepack. His statement regarding the accident was taken by the Commanding Officer, he spoke to Vance and Gibbs and some guy from the Air Accident Investigation team who was flying out to the ship in the hopes of examining the recovered wreckage of the Seahawk.

He dozed off to sleep only after the nurse said Ellie's condition had stabilised. The raspy sounds of her wheezy, crackling respirations were awful but over time the hissing gurgling noises lessened. Hours passed, he only left her side to eat and grab more coffee. Sometime later, the doctor in charge ordered him to his rack but he fudged, declaring only his own superior could order him from his self-appointed post. A couple of minutes later the guy handed him a phone and an irate Gibbs barked at him to do as he was told. He reluctantly complied but only for a couple of hours, he told himself, just to recharge his battery.

Once in his bunk he collapsed into a blessedly deep dreamless sleep and was only wakened when his internal comms phone in the cabin buzzed unrelentingly until he dragged himself out of bed to answer it. The Air Accident Investigators had arrived, his presence was requested, immediately.

Pulling on clothes he dashed to the sickbay first, but Ellie was still sleeping. She was ok, getting better, stronger and would be released to her rack later in the day.

His face must have shown his shock more than relief as the nurse reassured him she really was ok. Frustratingly he was kept away from her for the rest of the day. More reports, statements, MTAC debriefing blah blah blah. He had managed to pop into the ship's stores mid-morning; he was quite sure she wouldn’t mind him using up their onboard allowance on goodies! When he was eventually dismissed it was late. He grabbed a quick sandwich in the mess hall and snagged one for her too in case she was hungry.

His heart thundered when he reached their cabin, both eager to see her and anxious to make amends properly, hopeful they could salvage their relationship, that they could both forgive and forget. He found her fast asleep in her bunk, her hair fanned out over her pillow, dark smudges under her eyes matching her grey tee-shirt. She’d been reading, the book had dropped from her hands, the page lost. He noticed the sweet wrappers strewn beside her too and smiled knowing she’d found the stash he left for her. Quietly he reached over, took up the novel and the rubbish and switched off her small overhead light leaving his own on.

He could still hear the noises in her chest as she breathed but it was more akin to gravelly snoring now. Still, she looked fragile, pale and delicate. He gently pulled the woolly blanket up over her shoulder and resisted the impulse to touch her face, to kiss her cheek. He didn’t want to wake her; she needed her rest. She had to be exhausted, even more so than himself, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so wiped out. His chaotic thoughts spun in a whirlpool, down over rapids, bubbling back to the surface, too agitated to rest, until finally, the overtiredness won out.

He wasn’t sure what woke him until he heard it again, a low moaning whine as the bed beneath him creaked and linen rustled. Her bloodcurdling scream had him jumping out of his own bunk and waking her, holding her, soothing her.

He hadn’t planned what happened next, if he had he would’ve been gentler, less persistent, more _romantic_ for god’s sake, but his remorse for hurting her, his desperation to be with her, overwhelmed him. It was like a dam burst within him, an unstoppable tidal wave of emotions let loose, that only having, possessing, her would satisfy.

She didn’t resist; she determinedly spurred him on, her own needs as intense as his own. When they kissed his brain lit on fire, his skin burned wherever she touched, the blaze spreading throughout his entire being as he tried to melt his body into hers.

It was irrational and frantic, instinctive and primitive. 

His chest heaved with pent-up emotion as they started a frenzied battle with their clothing, clawing everything away until the sense of urgency to feel all of Ellie, alive and responsive to his touch engulfed him and he was plunging deep and desperately into her core, hunting ruthlessly to get closer until his release came

Never, he’d never experienced that intensity or anything like it and going by her howls of approval that he attempted to stifle before she raised an ‘all quarters’ alarm, he definitely hit her spot…a lot!

Eventually, they slept, sated, satisfied and still tangled together.

He woke in the early morning, opening his eyes and realized she had rolled onto her side, lying with her back pressed to his chest and his arms were snuggly around her. Teasingly her ass was resting flush against his groin like they were the matching pieces of a jigsaw, his rapidly firming-up length filling the cleft between her buttocks, his tip tantalising close to where it wanted to be all over again. He didn’t want to wake her but the temptation to kiss her was too much. His gentle touch stirred her hair while his lips passed over her neck and across her shoulder. She stretched and yawned sleepily until she grew aware of his presence, his nakedness and her own. It took a moment for her to orientate herself and then she leaned into him, snuggling deeper into his arms, flexing her hips to seat herself firmly in his lap. He moved both his hands over her, caressing whisper-soft, her breath hitched when his hands moved lower, her thighs spreading apart. He felt her fingers overlay and interlace with his own and her subtle tug, directing his hands lower, between, inside. One finger dipped in and immersed itself slowly, out and in, the movements joined by the other hand which remained on the surface, treading in light circles that had her gasping in pleasure.

But it wasn’t enough.

Her leg moved back over his to arch her hips forward into his hands, her moaning like the tide roaring in his ears, rising over his fingers as he continued to stroke her, all of her moving with it. She grabbed his ass, urging him forward and moved to give him access and hummed in pleasure as he pushed deep within her. She braced her palms against the cabin wall pushing herself back harder onto him even as he drove forward into her. The combination of contact, stimulation and pressure on every sensitive area had them both swirling on the edge and just as they both tensed, ready to tumble blissfully together, the internal comms phone buzzed, jolting them both out of their rhythm of ecstasy.

He growled in frustration, but it was Ellie that surprised him

‘ _Don’t_ fucking stop Torres, don’t you _dare_ fucking stop!’ she hissed digging her nails into his hip demanding he continue, harder, faster... the phone stopped at some stage before his orgasm hit him like a gut-punch, knocking the wind out of him, shooting up his spine and blurring his vision. He was lost to heat and sensation and mumbling her name, arms crushing her to him - his heart pounding against her spine, and for a moment he was worried, as he started to come back to himself, that he might be hurting her were it not for her reaching back, clawing him to her just as tightly as she rode out the lingering vibrations of her climax.

The phone rang again, and his head dropped on her shoulder, panting with exertion. This time he clambered to answer it, chuckling as he stole another kiss, her shoulder quivering as she hid her naughty giggles behind her palm.

‘Agent Torres, communique on the bridge for your attention. A Special Agent Gibbs is looking for you and Agent Bishop to return his video call’ the piping voice of a young ensign informed him.

‘Oh, Gibbs huh? We’ll be there in ten minutes’.

Ellie hid her head under the pillow. More kissing ensued until they both decided almost simultaneously that it wasn’t a smart move to piss off the boss with being late to another call so pulling on their scattered clothes they each headed to the showers to wash off the evidence of their activities. He was back in the cabin before her and looking at the obvious signs of what they had done, he rapidly stripped the bed and waited nervously for Ellie’s return only a couple of minutes later.

‘Ellie' he swallowed nervously, 'I um…we didn’t... I didn’t think about protection’ 

‘Yeah, pair of us didn’t think, huh?’ she grimaced. ‘Look in the shower I did the maths, I’m um, due my period in the next day or two so we should be ok…but if you're, _concerned_ -?’ her face was growing rosier by the second with awkward embarrassment but it was undeniably a joint fuck-up…literally!

‘-Ellie’ he cut across her his palm raised to stall her imminent worry-fest, ‘whatever you think or want to do is fine with me, ok?’

‘Ok’ she breathed a sigh of relief, ‘I think we’re good, but maybe precautions…next time?’

‘Deal’ he smirked exultantly; more sex, lots more, with Ellie was something he was definitely into!

Climbing the stairwells to the upper decks Nick noticed Ellie was struggling, flinching as she reached upward for the steep handrails. By the third level up a sweaty sheen glistened over her forehead and the audible wheeze was back. He slowed their pace, fuck it if they were late for a call, Gibbs would understand. He was already reprimanding himself for being so ‘physically active’ in the cabin, mentally listing her injuries, pissed off with himself that he risked her health with his untamed lust.

They missed their call, but Gibbs had left the message that he’d arranged an earlier flight from the Mayport airfield back to DC. With only a couple of hours left before they were due to disembark he managed to persuade Ellie to revisit the infirmary for a check over. She must have felt shitty because she actually agreed with little fight.

Her O2 levels had dropped with exertion, she had some inflammation in her lungs and her ribs were obviously causing her more pain than she was letting on. The medic gave her a stern talking to about the importance of rest for recovery and the very real risks of relapse.

Fucking like rabbits was _not_ on the treatment plan. His should’ve had some modicum of control and consideration and the guilt was worse than a kick in the balls.

He added this to the ever-longer list of things they needed to talk about, their sudden catapult into sleeping together had not so far involved many conversations. They had the flight back though and he was sure they would both be signed off work for a few days, enough time to slow down, take stock and get to grips with where they were at and more importantly where they were going.

Gibbs standing on the dock was not on his Bingo card!

Their usually stoic boss looked them both over as they came down the gangplank, thankfully at that moment not hand in hand, though a couple of minutes before he might have been surprised by Ellie's behaviour as she furtively kissed him, dropping her hand way south, front and centre to underline her point that she was feeling _much_ better. She was already winded and flushed from their impromptu make-out session and Gibbs gently wrapped her in a hug and kissed her temple, plainly relieved to see her alive but shocked at her weak condition. Nick got a bearhug from the guy and a gravelly ‘Good job Torres’, high praise indeed!

As soon as he saw the military helicopter he knew she’d have a problem. Her feet stalled in hesitation and then abruptly came to a stop as soon as it became clear that she was expected to get into the chopper currently powering up.

‘Bishop?’

‘Gibbs I can’t…I don’t think I can…’

‘Bishop, like riding a horse, you get straight back up’

Her head nodded numbly but her feet stayed glued to the spot.

‘You can do this Bishop, you're not a quitter, right?’ Gibbs pressed her, challenging her with an eyeballing. He would have come to her defence if Gibbs pushed her too hard, but he saw the compassion there along with the glare, enough to goad her into complying. Nick heard her huff out a snort, either in annoyance with their boss or with herself. She fidgeted with her hair, pushing non-existent wisps behind her ears even though it was held back in a neat ponytail, her tell when she was processing an uncomfortable emotion.

He said nothing just moved his hand to her lower back, slowly soothing her trembling frame with gentle circular motions until her feet started walking. She stoically pulled on the flight suit, life-vest and helmet but once seated her fingers shook so violently he had to click her into the five-point harness. He held her hand stroking her knuckles until they were airborne and he didn’t care if the boss’s sharp blue eyes saw or not.

Surprisingly, though maybe not really, Gibbs had thought ahead and reached into his bag pulling out a notepad and iPod.

‘Bishop, while we’re flying thought you could help out on this translation? Intel from a Pakistani madrasa. We think one of the scholars is trying to make contact about possible threats. The Pashto is highly accented though so you might not be able to-’ he added dubiously.

‘Yeah Boss sure, I can work on that’ she chirped back enthusiastically, her hands doing that grabby thing she did when she got excitedly impatient for something, admittedly usually a toffee apple muffin or some god-awful salty/sweet chip snack. Nick smiled as he saw straight through Gibbs’ distraction tactic, Ellie couldn’t resist translations, another puzzle to solve. Flashing him a quick smile she popped the earbuds in and started in on the task, challenge accepted.

They changed to a twin-propeller military plane at Jacksonville USMC base with only one episode of white-knuckle anxiety when they hit a fleeting pocket of turbulence. He had to admit his own guts clenched unnerved by the sensation, but Ellie looked petrified, her eyes scrunched tight, her face pale, even her lips looked ashen. He carefully prised her hand off the armrest and interlaced her clammy fingers with his own. Gibbs didn’t complain as another judder resulted in a death-grip on his forearm that probably drew blood. He just patted her hand and went back to his theatrically nonchalant snooze in the seat the far side of her.

Finally, they landed and he couldn’t help himself, they needed alone time, to work stuff out, talk things through…and get back to some other activities that had been rushed on the ship!

‘So, Bishop, I promised you pizza’ he nudged her gently as they followed the corridor out to the arrivals gate.

‘Yeah, you did, didn’t you’ she answered coyly with that smiling head tilt she did that drove him wild.

‘Well I could grab us a Carlucci’s, they do those truffle oil doughballs you like, you know splash out- no pun intended’

‘What the-?’ she blurted out in astonishment.

‘You know sea, splash landing…?’

‘ _Oh my god!'_ she whispered in disbelief.

‘Yeah, you may want to defer those dinner plans, Torres’ Gibbs smirked with a glance to a cheering crowd gathered at the family area. He had just a second to register the familiar faces of their team before a throng of men rushed over to Ellie and in alarm, he instinctively braced his arms around her to protect her from the onslaught of enthusiastic hugs.

‘ _Whoa_! Whoa guys, _easy_! She has some cracked ribs ok?’ he warned them still holding them back, an action that earned him an astonished look from the three culprits.

‘George! Rob! John! Oh my god, _what_ are you guys doing here?!’ Ellie almost squealed in delight, giving each of them a quick hug while her brothers heeded his caution and gingerly returned the gesture.

Nick hadn’t seen the guys in a couple of years and circumstances had definitely changed between him and Ellie. He had no idea what they knew about their dating or their break up and he shuffled his feet nervously awaiting the interrogation but was luckily rescued by a team group-hug led by Jimmy. Several conversations competed noisily with each other. He caught snippets of Ellie and her brothers loudly explaining that Gibbs had called, that the crash was even on the news, that she had to call her parents immediately. Meanwhile, he was getting a deluge of pats on the back for apparently saving the day. It got even more awkward when the Bishop boys collectively bear-hugged him for bringing their sister home alive and well. The ‘just doing my job’ line and the ‘would have done the same for anyone’ was received with barely-concealed suspicion, especially by her oldest brother George who eyed him up speculatively.

Oh, there would be questions!

Somewhere in all the babble of chatter, it was decided Ellie was going home with her brothers who were going to be staying with her for a few days while she recuperated and McGee was offering to drop Nick home as it was on his route home. He was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by friends and family. Their evening together was well and truly scuppered.

When they had to say goodbye it was like every eye was on them. He could see the blush rising up her neck and they stood facing each other, not touching, not sure of how to part in front of their audience.

‘So, I guess I’ll see you back at the office Bishop’

‘Yeah, um, thanks Nick for everything…’

‘Don't you ever go drowning on me again, Bishop. Someone will start a rumour about us if they catch us doing mouth to mouth too often’ he winked outrageously and flashed his best cheeky smile giving her a casual one-armed hug. Ellie scoffed at his cheesiness and smiled ruefully as her brothers started ragging on her as Nick knew they would.

But her eyes lingered on his and he knew they were good.

So when his new phone rang that night as he sat on his sofa exhausted and bleary-eyed only half watching soccer on the TV he thought it might be her, sneaking away from her motley crew of siblings to talk to him, to say goodnight maybe.

But it was his boss’s gravelly voice he heard instead.

‘Torres, I just got a call. FBI tracked a dark-web video of the kids, they raided a boathouse on the Potomac a couple of hours ago, arrested a guy. Thought you’d want to know. Nick, it’s _not_ David Melden’.


	8. Treacherous tides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soz for the delay...I blame the US election count and a new puppy!

Maybe she was imagining it?

Like, come on, the circumstances were _hardly_ ideal; her three _very_ present and _very_ nosey brothers had invaded her apartment and her life, and Nick was swamped at work, working loads of overtime on a case she knew nothing about.

So maybe he just _didn’t_ have time to talk to her properly since they got home? And ok _maybe_ he wasn’t brave enough to come to visit her, logical seeing as her brothers would probably haul his ass over the coals trying to sniff out some confirmation of their new suspicion about her relationship with him.

‘Just good friends’ was falling on very deaf, very sceptical ears.

She had even put her edginess down to having her period, reliably on time thankfully after their less than _careful_ liaison on the ship. She always got a little _hinky_ , a little more emotionally fragile around that time of the month. She was probably reading way too much into things, right?

It wasn’t like he wasn’t talking to her at all; he texted every day, every morning and late every night like clockwork.

No, her analytical mind told her it was all about the tone.

Polite. Scrupulously polite.

He _politely_ asked how she was doing, were her ribs improving, was she doing her chest physio exercises, was she taking it easy, was she sleeping ok. She told him she was, that she was much better, almost 100%, to quit worrying about her. He didn’t need to know that her hacking cough was agony or about waking up in a cold sweat as the seawater covered her face again…

Maybe he was just keeping it toned down in case one of her brothers goofed off with her phone? Or maybe….? She was losing count of the ‘maybes’.

Nope. She felt niggly…something was _off_.

She’d been home now for five days recovering and recuperating, being fussed over by her irritatingly attentive brothers. Everyone else on the team had popped up to her apartment to check in with her, bringing cookies and cakes, flowers and magazines.

Everyone except Nick.

A seed of doubt sprouted in her middle that she just couldn’t ignore. Why hadn’t he called or come over? Maybe he had regrets? They hadn’t talked about any of it; their dating and breakup, the row about the case and his suspension and they certainly hadn’t discussed what happened aboard the Bainbridge.

Nothing about that amazingly intense experience of being together, the smoulderingly passionate making love, the hot as hell _sex_!

And now his texts were solicitous of her health, a regular stream of ‘checking in’ messages yes, but no teasing, no banter… no emotion.

It was like he was holding her at arm’s length and the distance confused and hurt her profoundly.

She had no idea what he was thinking or feeling about her, about them. Uncertainty spilled into anxiety that no amount of chocolate or tetchy moping could fix.

And her brothers were inquisitive.

It was lovely having them visit, lovely, really nice… but she was slowly going out of her mind!

They were _everywhere_ \- sprawled out on the sofa with socked feet up on her coffee table, snacking in the kitchen, hogging the bathroom, crashed out on the floor on blow-up beds like it was some damn testosterone-reeking slumber party! And as much as she loved hanging out with them there really was only so much _Cobra Kai_ she could watch daily!

In fairness, they were doing their best with the ‘big brother’ responsibility routines, like fixing stuff, hanging pictures, doing an oil change on her truck. It was sweet but jeez was she glad when Rob and John decided to head out for some last night in D.C. beers. George stayed home, on his own he was manageable but he was also the one who knew how she ticked the best. He was patient, biding his time, watching and waiting, ready to pounce. He was so like her mom- observant, perceptive and like all Bishops, blunt!

‘El, a watched kettle never boils’ he muttered sagely past a mouthful of popcorn.

‘Huh?’

‘That’s about the twentieth time you’ve checked your phone, why don’t you just call him?’

‘ _What?_ Him? _Who_?’ she spluttered, irritated that he had caught her out doing exactly what he said.

‘Torres, Nick, your ‘just a friend’ partner?’ he smirked, shovelling another handful of popcorn into his mouth.

‘I’m _not_ -,’

‘Don’t even try to deny it, there’s more sparks between you two than the fourth of July!' he snickered wryly. 'Did you guys have a fight?' he probed, 'Is that why he’s the only one of your co-workers who hasn’t visited or is he too much of a wuss to run the gauntlet with us Bishop boys?’ he comically flexed his biceps but the look he levelled at her was shrewd.

She felt the traitorous blush rise up her neck.

‘ _No_! Well, yeah kinda, but it’s not-, look it’s _complicated_ ’ she eventually stammered out defensively.

‘Ah, that old chestnut’ he rolled his eyes theatrically at her stupid, inarticulate explanation.

‘Look Ellie it’s not _complicated_ at all, if you like him and he likes you, just talk it out! I knew the first time I met him he had the hots for you and you… I know _you_ sis, you're all starry-eyed about him’ he wiggled his fingers in the air to emphasise his point.

‘Am not!’ she scoffed but covered her embarrassment by loading up on another fistful of M&Ms.

‘Are too!’ he nipped back childishly triggering a shared chuckle at their age-old repartee. ‘Just, tell him how you feel, don’t miss a chance at being happy. And _that’s_ about as much advice regarding my baby sister’s love life as I’m ever likely to give! Now I’m going for a walk to the store, to restock your snack supply sadly depleted by those two oafs we call our brothers. Talk to him, you're back in work tomorrow, you guys should sort out stuff before you have an audience’.

‘You know what, shocking as this is to admit but maybe you're right’ she replied ruefully, ‘I think I’ll drive over to his. His shift on this god-awful stakeout he’s been covering will be up soon’ she calculated, knowing there was no point in trying to dissuade George of ‘something’ going on with Nick. he really did know her too well.

‘If you’re not back by midnight I dibs your bed’ he winked stretching his arms above his head to iron out the kinks of camp bedding. Her face burned with George’s assumption she’d be spending the night with Nick but then a different kind of tingly warmth curled much lower down within her at that thought so she was tardy with a snappy comeback.

She tidied herself up a bit, well _a lot_ actually as she’d spent the best part of a week lounging in leggings and hoodies. A shower, jeans and pretty chiffon blouse along with fixing her hair and she was all set. He’d said he was working all day and night-duty surveillance teams always relieved at 8 pm so it was just after that when she pulled up across the road from Nick’s place. Using the glow of the amber streetlights she checked herself one last time in the rear-view mirror, her pulse trilling with the thought of seeing him, looking forward to surprising him when he clocked off, her heart galloping as she imagined his touch on her skin…

And then she saw him, walking down the steps of his block talking to a woman. Ellie was just about to beep her horn to grab his attention when the two hugged and her hand stalled. Another car drove by, its headlights blinding her for a second as involuntary tears stung her eyes.

What was he doing home? Who was she? What the hell was going on?!

The woman got into her car, parked too far away to see the plate though, and he waved her off as she drove away. It could be completely innocent she told herself, repeatedly.

She could just carry on with her original plan, walk over, ring his doorbell, get the innocent explanation…

But she had been stung before, once bitten twice shy.

Instead, she pulled out her phone and called him but it went to voicemail. She hung up flustered, unsure what to do next and while still pondering her options her phone pinged with a text.

 _‘Everything ok?_ ’ his text read. She _could_ just say that she was outside, totally not jumping to conclusions, right? But no, she had to ask.

_‘Yeah, fine, whatcha doing, still at work?’_

_‘Yeah, working a case. Same stakeout’_ the words on the phone screen burned into her retina, it was like a death knell in her heart.

 _‘This late?’_ she typed back with trembling fingers hoping against hope he’d tell the truth.

 _‘Has to be done. Don’t forget to take your pain meds. Talk tomorrow x’._ His concern twisted the knife of broken trust deeper into her.

Lies, she _hated_ lies.

The fact it was _Nick_ blatantly lying to her was unbearable.

Feeling more than a little nauseous she drove home determined not to cry. Her brother was still watching TV and was surprised she was home already but she mumbled that Nick was pulling extra hours and wasn’t home, about being tired and needing rest before getting back to work. Once in her bed, she let the riptide of hurt pull her under, her pillow muffling her sobs.

She faked a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bounciness the next morning, anything to hide the upset she actually felt from her brothers. She laughed and joked all the way to the airport for their dawn flight but unsurprisingly perhaps George wasn’t fooled. From bitter experience, he knew that sometimes it was better to save his breath to cool his porridge rather than intrude on her personal stuff when she was riled. She’d tell him eventually but now she felt too raw.

Later that morning, finally back at her desk, she _knew_ for certain she was _not_ imagining things. Nick was actively avoiding her. It was like he was purposely organising it so that they were never alone, he even took the stairs down to the lab rather than the lift with her. She kept her cool when he barely looked at her, as he hardly spoke to her unless it was a group interaction and instead did her best to get on top of what work she had missed, struggling to keep her face neutral.

She felt hollow.

At the end of the day it was just herself and McGee in the bullpen, Nick had volunteered, if you could believe _that_ , to go pull out old case files from the archive.

‘Hey Tim, so what’s this big stakeout case Nick’s been working on? I’m surprised Vance okayed so much overtime’ she ribbed with forced joviality.

‘Um, there’s no stakeout that I know of’ he replied, his tone puzzled, ‘and if there _was_ some overtime going, I’d be all over that. Twins are not cheap!’

‘Oh, um, wires crossed maybe, I thought he said something about a big case swamping you guys while I was off sick?’

‘Nah, it’s been surprisingly quiet, nice getting home early actually’.

She absently said night to McGee and slumped back into her chair.

Not work.

Just didn’t want to see or talk to _her_.

But he had time for that _other_ woman at his apartment.

Got it, message received. Screw this.

She went home and cleaned the kitchen, did the mountains of laundry and pushed past her irritating cough and wheezing to scrub the bathroom, anything and everything to keep busy. That done she showered, pulled on some fresh pjs and switched on the news determined to luxuriate in the quiet calm of being alone in her own apartment.

Her phone pinged; the text lit up her screen. Nick.

‘ _Hey I heard you coughing today, are you still taking the antibiotics?_ ’

Nope, not answering! She pushed the phone away shaking her head at his audacity.

She made herself some honeyed tea which helped a little with the cough and tried to concentrate on the news rather than her maelstrom of increasingly angry thoughts.

 _‘Are you ok?’_ the bright light of his contact image emblazoned across the screen as his message flashed up a few minutes later.

She shook her head in disbelief, was asking after her health salving his conscience somehow?

Maddened she upped the TV volume, mentally restraining herself from verbalising some of her more colourful linguistic thoughts about her erstwhile lover, and then froze, silenced, as the newsreader reported a local news story with the photos she recognised instantly.

_A court has ordered the continued detention of Alan Kudov today, the man charged with the deaths of three children whose bodies were found on US Navy property along the Potomac shoreline…._

Alan Kudov? Who the hell was he?

She was shaken out of her bewilderment by her phone ringing, Nick’s face flashing up on screen again.

Without thinking she snatched up her phone and barked down the line.

‘ _What_ Nick? Oh, you want to talk now?’

‘Ellie?’ he sounded stunned by her verbal attack.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she growled, her voice unrecognisable even to herself.

‘Tell you what?’

‘Oh, that’s right, there’s quite a few things you’ve omitted to tell me isn’t there, Nick? she snarked, hating herself for using sarcasm to hide her hurt.

‘Ellie, I don’t, I-,’ he spluttered seriously on the backfoot.

‘You should have told me, about Alan Kudov at least’ she spat, her chest heaving with the effort of controlling her emotions, wincing a little as she knew another spate of painful congested coughing was brewing. Nick was quiet for a time, so long in fact she pulled the phone away and looked at the screen to see if he’d cut her off.

'Ellie I need-,' he started hesitantly.

‘How long have you known?’ she asked pointedly, interrupting whatever he was saying.

She heard him sigh, a raspy sound told her he was rubbing his face irritably. ‘Gibbs told me the night we got back’ he eventually answered quietly.

‘You should have told me!’

Then she heard him huff out derisively.

‘What and get an ‘I told you so’ about Melden? I get it, you were right I was wrong, are you happy now?’ he bit out harshly.

_So they were back to that._

‘You think I’d do that? You actually have the nerve to take that tone with me, seriously?’ she hissed, her voice ominously low.

‘I didn’t mean it the way it came out, I just-,’ he started in on some kind of apology that she didn’t want to hear.

‘No stop, enough! I’m not doing this over the phone. If you have something to say be here in twenty minutes. If not, I’ll make it real easy for you to carry on avoiding me, permanently!’.

‘Ellie I'm not- look I _can’t_ right now, I’m working a stakeout-,’ he replied, clearly frustrated that she would make a demand. It just inflamed her more.

‘Oh yeah, that’s right, the overtime case that doesn’t exist. The one that kept you from calling me or coming over to see me. I hope she’s great, Nick, have fun!’

‘What-?!’

But she hung up.

Bishop rule one; zero tolerance for liars.

Enough. A relationship shouldn’t be this hard, it shouldn’t hurt this much.

Her phone rang again and again, each call going to voicemail, but she ignored it and went to bed, a new book and a giant bar of chocolate for company. She’d been bitterly disillusioned by a husband’s infidelity. Nick wasn’t even a boyfriend, they had just hooked up and now it was over. Over, done, finito, no biggy!

She was determined to Teflon coat her titanium heart this time.

She refused to be hurt again.


	9. Here there be monsters

For the next few days, she took a leaf out of Nick’s book and avoided being at her desk. There were no new cases so it was easy to cop a squat and hang out in the basement level. She had snagged an old leather sofa down near the evidence lockers and she should’ve been reviewing cold cases, but her mind was elsewhere, stuck in her pilfered pages of the Melden file that she carefully arrayed around herself. She was still sure he was involved and was convinced the proof was there, somewhere. She had _acquired_ the FBI case notes about Alan Kudov too, definitely not legal but she had a friend at the Bureau who owed her a favour…

Kudov was _not_ a good guy, a long murky history that should’ve landed him behind bars years ago, but it just didn’t square with her that he was the perp for _this_ case. Her eyes glazed as she pored over the notes again.

She was over-tired, and her ribs ached and no, she _hadn’t_ done her exercises so while she read the irksome files _again_ she went through her physio routines until a paroxysm of coughing drew the attention of a friend.

‘Eleanor, do you need some water?’ Ducky’s head popped out from his new library storage area.

‘I’m good thanks, I have a bottle here. I swear I can still taste the sea-salt at the back of my throat when I cough’ she smiled at the older man’s concerned face.

‘Well it may be true, the residue of the brine no doubt coated your bronchioles and respiratory mucus membranes…’

‘Ducky! You are a genius!’

‘Well, thank you for the compliment but may I ask _why_ this outburst?’

‘Something I just remembered thanks to you, got to go’ she scrambled to her feet, gathered up her stuff and made a beeline for Kasie’s lab hoping against hope she still had what she wanted.

‘Kase, I need your help, please tell me you still have the autopsy samples from the children in the Melden case?’ she blurted out breathlessly.

‘You mean the _Kudov_ case?’

‘Maybe, but it’ll take too long to explain, do you have them?’

‘Well the FBI took pretty much everything when the files went over to them but the Mass Spec analysis results, I have those in the system. What are you looking for exactly?’

‘I remember during the autopsy Jimmy said there was a residue in the kids’ lungs, a kind of silt maybe, did you process that?’

Tapping away she pulled up her analysis. ‘Yeah, it’s a kind of mineral sediment, particles of quartz, pyrite, calcium ooh and element 79 Au, wow that’s unusual!’

‘Au, as in _gold_?!’

‘Yeah, microscopic quantities but along with the other particulates I can narrow down the areas where similar soil combinations occur’. Kasie chewed on her lip intently, her fingers dancing over her keyboard.

‘You're in luck, Bishop! Here’s the printout and I’ll email you the geological survey map. There’s a few pockets that match the profile in Virginia-,’

‘Culpeper County?’

‘Yeah, Culpeper County, how in the _hell_ did you know that?’ she asked stupefied at Ellie’s accurate mental leap.

‘Just a hunch Kasie, thanks for this I’ll see you Monday ok?’. She barely waited for a bye before she rushed away, impatient to get home.

She sat up the whole night researching, it was better than regurgitating over and over on Nick and his lies! The FBI might have a guy, but her gut was surer than ever that David Melden was the real killer. It would be so much easier if she could talk through her idea with Nick, he knew the case inside out and she wasn’t used to working on instincts and hunches but at least now she had a tiny bit of evidence, actual science to back up her idea.

The kids drowned yes but not in _river_ water. The residue in their lungs was literal gold dust.

Now all she had to do was pinpoint him on a map.

She trawled back through the files she had salvaged from the FBI sweep. There was nothing obvious to connect anything about the case to Culpeper County but she kept digging knowing she had seen something important way back when they originally worked the case. The whole county was once famous for gold-mining in like the 19th century, why did that bizarre nugget stick with her?

Grabbing another coffee, she realised the sun was up but she kept going until it finally caught her eye. Melden’s financials, he paid a small land tax to the State of Virginia every year even though he lived in Maryland. It was enough to have her driving down the Interstate heading to the Culpeper County Registrar’s office.

Loretta Smith, the clerk on duty, was grudgingly helpful even though it was a Saturday as she reiterated, _several_ times. By lunchtime Ellie was up to her elbows in the hand-drafted County Records for prospecting claims going back decades, digitalisation was not high on the priority list here apparently. Land was still held by families going back generations in the hopes of one day finding a huge payload of gold. Loretta droned on and on about historic finds in local riverbeds and sluice-shoots but nowadays only those with heavy machinery capable of moving earth at an industrial rate would find treasures. Old mines pockmarked the whole county. Prospectors were meant to lodge annual blueprints or drawings of their excavation earthworks, but few did.

Ellie noticed several missed calls from Nick on her phone, but she continued her work. A week had passed and he hadn’t bothered to even try fix it. There was nothing he could say now, she had given him a chance to talk it out and his fictitious ‘stakeout’ took precedence.

Over, done, finito …the fact she was still trying to prove Nick was right about Melden all along was neither here nor there! _She_ needed to know.

She pored over the title records until her eyes blurred then bingo! John David Melden transferred ownership to his sons John and David, with an active tax duty still being paid annually on the claim. Having grid references, Lorretta, ever the literal mine of information, directed her out to the uninhabited property with a warning about staying on the road or paths as land subsidence and sinkholes were frequent.

As she drove through heavy rain along the wooded, rural roadway heading further and further away from the town, she wondered was this _really_ a good idea. She was alone, armed, yes, but nobody on the team knew about her hunch never mind the fact she was actually headed to an abandoned mine in the Virginia back-country looking for _what_ exactly she didn’t really know. She almost reconsidered her actions especially when the car radio seemed to struggle to keep the signal. She flicked through the stations until she found one with less static. It was late, the 5 pm news was due up next and her phone rang again.

‘I’m not talking to you Nick!’ she shouted at her still ringing phone on the passenger seat and turned up the radio louder which is how she almost skidded the car into the ditch as she slammed on the brakes.

_An Amber alert has been issued five-year-old Victoria Palmer missing, presumed taken, from D.C. Naval Yard sports ground since morning. Suspect has been identified as David Melden, a Caucasian male driving a silver Prius registration C3T 56K, do not approach as may be armed and is considered dangerous…_

Her phone rang again, and she snatched it up fully expecting Gibbs to ball her out of it for being unreachable.

‘Bishop, finally! We need you here like _now_!’ McGee’s voice was terse.

‘Tim, I’ve just heard the Amber Alert on the radio. What happened, it’s Jimmy’s Victoria isn’t it?’ she sucked in her breath already knowing the answer.

‘Yeah, taken from her ‘Little Kickers’ soccer practice. We have CCTV, it was Melden, it’s like he wants to be caught! We lost him in traffic in this rain. It's all hands on deck, see you in twenty’

‘Ah McGee, I’ll be a while I’m erm, well I'm in Culpeper County. I’ve tracked down a prospecting property owned by the Melden family and I’m going to check it out then I’ll head straight to the office’.

‘Bishop, what? Are you…don’t… on your own… Torres is here…?’ she could barely hear him as the reception was poor.

‘Yeah, I’m just going to look around ok, I’ll send you the location’

‘What if-,’ the phone coverage cut out.

Her stomach churned with the visions of what could be happening to little Victoria and how Jimmy and Breena must be losing their minds with worry and how this was all her fault.

Nick was right. If she'd backed him up last month Melden would be behind bars and not doing…no she couldn’t finish that thought.

Speeding up she took the left at the T just as Lorretta had described and followed the ever-narrowing rutted lane down to a corroded agricultural gate. Pulling up the hood of her rain-jacket she cautiously got out of her car she drew her side-arm, noticing the lock and chain were new, and that the gate was open. The wet afternoon was already dimming towards dusk and she was having serious second thoughts, maybe it would be best to just call it in and wait for the team…then as she scoped out the area, past the rusting dilapidated shacks and obsolete machinery, she saw the tail end of a silver Prius.

She just had time to send a 911 text message to McGee before she heard the sound of a metallic click of a gun being cocked behind her.

‘Tut tut, Agent Bishop, _alone_?', she'd know his sneering voice anywhere. 'Aren’t you breaking protocol again? Where’s your overprotective, muscular partner, is he still following me? He really is doggedly persistent isn’t he?’

‘Melden, just tell me where she is!’

‘Now that’s just not polite, it’s _Captain_ Melden!’ he corrected her.

‘Where is Victoria?!’

‘Drop the gun now and I’ll bring you to her, it’s my special place, do you want to see?’

‘If you hurt her-,’ she growled an impotent threat, but she dropped her gun, all the same, hissing as he shoved his own into her sore ribs.

‘You’ll what, pout your pretty face? Get your big strong boyfriend to hit me again?’

‘NCIS are on the way right now Melden, they know you have Victoria, there’s no way out of this for you.’ She reasoned curtly with her hands up in submission.

‘Then I’ll just have to hurry up and have my fun before they get here, huh?’ he smirked as he prodded her side again encouraging her to walk deeper up the trackway.

The whole area was like something out of a First World War movie, excavated trenches, water-filled craters and ditches, muddy banks and gravelly slag-heaps. Disused, decayed metal engineering works and piles of rotting scaffolding planks and poles littered everywhere. Straggly saplings and gorse sprouted between the various dumped materials and she could just make out the babbling rush of a nearby stream over the pattering of the rain.

And Melden kept on talking! If he was trying to shock her, he did, but she kept her face carefully neutral, not reacting to anything he threw at her. But inside she felt sick.

The hum of a generator caught her attention just as a dated caravan came into view. The RV had obviously been in that spot for years, the tyres were flat, and mould bloomed under its steamed-up windows. It was clear that was where she was heading, and every scenario playing out in her head was not good.

Was Victoria in there? Alive or…

Was she about to see or witness something so abhorrent the bile was already crawling up her throat or was this just a game where she herself was his next victim?

With his gun pushed bruisingly hard against her ribcage she did as she was bid and entered the mobile home. What her eyes fell on had her head whipping back in a double-take. Modern, sophisticated IT systems, cameras and monitors. A live-stream of online conversations and on-screen a little girl rolled up against a wall of a dark space.

Ellie's heart shuddered to a stop, was she too late?

She stared fixated on the horrific image, then she saw her move, pulling her legs in closer to her chest, tucking herself into a tighter ball.

Alive! For now.

‘So, you have a choice, watch the action here or be with her there’ he pointed to the footage.

‘ _Watch_? Watch what?’ she whispered suspiciously, still viewing Victoria on the monitor.

‘Watch what happens as you release the sluice gate in that section of the mine…my friends here online love the show, each episode this season has been very popular but I think this will be my best one yet!’ he tittered insanely. It was a bizarre sound coming from a solid military man.

‘I won’t do it’ she adamantly shook her head and clamped her mouth shut.

‘Oh, but you will, choose or I’ll choose for you and that would be unpleasant, for you. So be quick, between the water already rising and Gibbs’ imminent arrival, time is precious! While you're deciding, I’m curious, how _did_ you find me?’

‘The goldmine claim is registered to you and your brother. I followed your tax return’

‘Death and taxes, truly the only certainties in life’ he barked out a raucous laugh. ‘Of course, my brother was my first, took him three days to finally drown with exhaustion but I didn’t get the footage of that, pity, I adore re-watch parties! Well, what’s it going to be Agent Bishop?’

‘I’ll go be with Victoria’

‘Yeah thought you’d say that, all brave and self-sacrificing but no, can’t have you dying like a hero. No, _you_ are going to pull the lever and watch as the water drowns that poor innocent angel, ooh look this rain is speeding up the fill time’. On the screen, she could see Victoria now standing up hopping from one foot to another as water pooled around her ankles.

Time had run out, she had one chance; she had to make it count.

‘I’m going to be -,’ she blurted violently holding her palm to her mouth.

Retching on demand was a skill she'd developed as a kid in response to lumpy mash potato. The sounds she could produce were truly gut-curdling and _totally_ believable so when she bolted upright and positioned herself apparently about to hurl her stomach contents all over his sophisticated IT set-up Melden lunged to protect his precious electronics.

It was just the opportunity she needed, he may be a trained Navy Captain but she was skilled too and with some well-executed, close-combat manoeuvres, admittedly perfected through repetitive training with Nick, she deftly disarmed him.

‘Where is she Melden?’ she pointed her newly-acquired gun at him, but he smiled airily like he hadn’t a care in the world.

‘Oops not telling’ he smirked grinning at the screens still filming an increasingly distressed Victoria now standing in a pit filling with water almost up to her knees.

‘Weather report is for torrential rain, I hope you brought an umbrella’. His blasé taunting and obvious pleasure at watching the suffering of Victoria on the CCTV detonated something in her brain.

‘Out!’ she roared and indicating outside, ‘on the ground, face down, hands behind your back’. A glint of irritation flashed as he saw the muddy puddle she had chosen for his arrest. Kneeing him hard in the spine until she had the cuffs on, he rolled around to face her, his glee not diminished with the slimy muck marring his face.

‘Enough Melden, where?’ she took a step closer, threatening him with the gun.

‘What are you going to do, shoot me?’ he taunted her.

‘Good idea’ she replied calmly pulling the trigger, kneecapping him, right leg. His moaning was very satisfying, but she didn’t have time to gloat. ‘Where?!’

‘You’ll be fired, shooting an unarmed, restrained suspect!’ he hissed, squirming in pain, unable to staunch the bleeding with his hands cuffed behind his back.

‘Yeah maybe, I’ll worry about the paperwork later. Last chance’

‘You won’t-,’

‘Wrong answer’ she hit him with a straight shot in the shoulder. That got his attention.

‘Even if I told you, you won’t be able to get her out…until she floats up’ he chortled like a maniac because that was exactly what he was, a psychopath serial killer!

‘Where-is-she?’ she asked even as she aimed at his other knee, unflinching in her resolve.

‘Ok ok, follow the cables’, he flicked his chin towards the woods, and she noticed the tangle of conduit wiring leading off into the dark, conifer forest. With her gun still trained on the writhing man, she backed up to the gate and retrieved the chain and open padlock. She was going to make damn sure he didn’t abscond or worse follow her into the wood, he could have weapons stowed anywhere. She carefully threaded the chain through his handcuffs and looped and locked it onto a steel girder.

He was going no place!

She tried calling McGee but the coverage was scrappy, so she sent texts instead hoping to get one out anyway. The trail led past a small rocky escarpment scooped out and caved-in in places. The cables ran on to the left but then disappeared under a rusted, iron sheet laid flat over some rubble. Using her phone torch she checked it out. It seemed like little more than a drain cover with a hinged, circular section about a foot in diameter. Tracing her fingers around the edge she got a grip and pulled, the metal squealing as she opened the lid.

Shining her phone down the revealed narrow cavity she could see the rough earthen walls and heard water dripping, the echo giving away some indication of the depth of the hole.

Swallowing hard she took a breath and called.

‘Victoria, are you in here?’. It could all be a deliberate plan to stall, delay and waste time by Melden but she had to hope.

‘Victoria, shout out honey if you're down there!’

‘I’m not allowed talk to strangers!’ came a small voice from far below, the sound sending reverberating echoes around the narrow void.

‘Victoria! Sweetie, that’s absolutely right. It's Ellie, remember me? I work with your dad in NCIS. Oh my god, are you ok, are you hurt?’ She tried to shine the phone flashlight down the shaft or well or whatever it was, anxious to see the little girl for herself but she was too far down.

‘I’m cold, the water is coming in, and the man said I have to stay here’.

‘Victoria, listen to me, help is coming, we’ll get you out ok, home to your mom and dad. How deep is the water now?’

‘Um, just over my knees, it’s really cold’.

‘Ok Victoria, you are being so brave! Listen to me, I have to go away for a couple of minutes to call for more help. I promise I’ll be back really fast’ she spoke over the sobs of the little girl pleading with her to stay, she had to get emergency services assistance there like now!

‘I promise, Victoria, I’ll be right back ok?’

‘Pinkie promise?’ she heard the echo of a hiccupy sniff.

‘Absolutely, a Palmer pinkie promise!’

Her vow seemed to placate the little girl so Ellie ran back to the caravan, Melden was still squirming on the ground, the blood was pooling around him in the muddy puddle water, the rain soaking his clothes making it look worse but his injuries weren’t bad enough to fatally bleed out.

Probably.

She didn’t really care.

Pulling the door of the caravan open she burst inside and went to work on one of the keyboards.

She would save _this_ kid; this one wouldn’t be on her!


	10. Hidden depths

No one would ever accuse Nick Torres of being a _patient_ man. He knew he was a fiery, hot-headed, kick the door down, get the job done, lone wolf kind of NCIS agent and that had served him well, for years.

Until this team, until Ellie.

Little did he know _patience_ was something he was going to have to learn, real fast!

He was already exhausted tired that Saturday morning, sleep when he attempted it never came easy but this was worse than his usual insomnia. He needed _real_ sleep, a proper rest. He’d been burning the candle at both ends now for weeks and the cracks were showing.

He wanted to, _needed_ to, talk to Ellie but he couldn’t take his eyes off the game. He had a job to do. He should’ve just told her what he was doing but instead, his wounded pride got in the way and he had pushed her away. He couldn’t blame her for being angry with him.

This was his fault.

He was half-dozing on his sofa when the call came. Gibbs blunt as ever.

‘Torres, office now. Palmer’s daughter, Victoria, has been taken.’ He didn’t need to say anymore, Nick was already bolting out the door.

By the time he reached the Navy Yard, Ducky was pacing the playing field with a frantically agitated Jimmy, offering him quiet support while Gibbs was barking orders at the assorted law enforcement agencies already on site. McGee was heading back to NCIS to process CCTV footage of the area, but Nick knew instinctively it was Melden.

He was taunting them, taking one of their own, on their home turf.

A crazy few hours ensued. As he expected Melden was the culprit, brazenly grabbing the little blonde girl, still in her red soccer kit like all the other kids milling around during the parent pick-up melee. He was in his god-damn Navy uniform, like half the other parents and so hadn’t raised suspicion at all as he tossed the kid playfully into the air and twirled her about, winding her so she couldn’t call out. His smirk up at the last camera nearest the exit was chilling.

They had searched his house, garage, workplace and everywhere even remotely associated to him or to Alan Kudov, just in case they were somehow working in cahoots. Nothing.

And Ellie wasn’t answering her phone, not to him anyway.

Then McGee got a garbled call from her.

And if he felt stressed before his head damn near exploded when he learned she was half-way across the state about to investigate an old mine, _alone_ , with Melden god knows where. And there was crappy phone signal where she was.

Kasie managed to fill in some of the blanks, how Bishop had a hunch and had said she was following it up, but his guts twisted with anxiety.

In his mind, he now had _two_ missing family members but Gibbs pressed on with the search for Victoria ordering McGee, who was following up on a Kudov lead out on the I-95 and was closer, to head out to Bishop’s texted location while also alerting Culpeper County sheriff’s department to go the Melden property as back up.

He tried calling her again but now it wouldn’t even connect to voicemail. Cracking his knuckles with seething impatience drew a steely eyeballing from Gibbs so he quit and tried to concentrate on the incoming BOLO alerts.

Bogged down in the traffic cam footage of every road out of the city he almost didn’t notice the flashing of his email inbox notifications until one became twenty and rising. His SMS phone messages were doing the same. Then the printers, like _all_ of them, started whirring, spilling out pages with a grid reference repeated again and again. Sloane stood up from Ellie’s cubical, desk phone in hand bewildered and Gibbs had that face that screamed imminent detonation if someone didn’t explain WTF was going on like yesterday. First thought was it was some kind of virus, he didn’t recognise the sender address. Without McGee to verify its safety through his IT wizardry Nick threw caution to the wind, took a chance and opened the message.

_911 to NCIS, Agent Ellie Bishop, no cell signal! I’ve found Victoria Palmer, alive but trapped below ground. We need immediate search and rescue, medical emergency services. Suspect Melden in custody. See coordinates, don’t track this, it’s a VPN._

His need to kick down a door, any door, went into overdrive.

Gibbs drove the car at a fast but steady pace, chewing up the miles as they headed out to the location getting regular updates from McGee who had made it in under an hour. Ellie was ok, the rescue was underway with every emergency service either on-site or on-route, Jimmy and Breena were being escorted by Sloane, Melden was caught and incapacitated.

He should feel relieved, but he didn’t. His boss’s stoic silence over the past hour was not helping.

‘Just say it, Gibbs, it’s _my_ fault’

‘How’s that, exactly?’ he grizzled without breaking his focus on driving.

‘I should've been watching him’ he confessed bitterly.

‘Nick, it’s been weeks, there was no way you could keep it up, even with the help’

‘But I _should_ have-,’

‘He played you, played us all’ Gibbs flared in sudden ire.

The car was ominously quiet for several minutes, his boss ruthlessly concentrating on the dark, rainy highway ahead, only the steady swish of the wipers punctuating the silence.

‘So, if it’s not about Melden, why are you pissed off with me?’ Nick asked bluntly, sick and tired of waiting for the balling out he knew was brewing.

‘Why was Bishop alone today following up on a hunch you knew nothing about? She’s your partner!’

He sucked in a breath and concentrated on the non-existent view out the side window. ‘I, um look things have been complicated since the suspension,-’

‘Bullshit, you guys seemed fine right after the crash as I recall’ Gibbs noted wryly with a tight smile.

‘Ok then, I fucked up and she’s not exactly talking to me right now’ he blurted running his hands roughly over his unshaven face, gone way beyond fashionably stubbled now.

Gibbs just shook his head ‘Only you could go from suspension to commendation and from her hero to zero in the space of a fortnight! That’s a special skill set Torres’ he lampooned rolling his eyes in amused exasperation.

Looking at it like _that_ Nick couldn’t help but laugh drily. Yeah, he had royally fucked things up.

Breaking them out of their moment of levity Nick’s phone rang and he quickly answered it ‘McGee you're on speaker, what’s happening?’

‘How far away are you guys?’. There was something about Tim’s tone that immediately had his hackles up.

‘Not too far, 30 minutes? Why?’ Gibbs answered tersely, checking the odometer.

‘Boss you might want to get here faster’ McGee pushed, his voice crackling with static interference.

‘Is Victoria out?’

‘Eh, no Boss that’s the problem, and erm, Bishop’s about to do something crazy dangerous… she won’t listen to me. Maybe one or both of you can talk her out of it…’ Nick had a hundred questions, but McGee cut off abruptly, the phone signal still precarious.

He didn’t even need to say anything, he just grabbed the overhead ‘oh Jesus’ handle sensing the car speed up as Gibbs floored it.

They could see the sky above the woods glowing with floodlighting from a couple of kilometres away and flashing blue and red lights when they reached the turn-off for the narrow laneway. As they got closer, they recognised every State and Federal emergency service branch and their vehicles, fire trucks providing light and generating power. There was also tv crews and even a helicopter news team circling overhead. A fucking circus!

Gibbs pretty much abandoned the car at the side of the road, and they made their way through the throng of multicoloured High-Vis jackets, stepping over cables, pipes and hoses, negotiating crater-sized puddles and mud that would sink you up to the ankle, until they finally found a stressed-out, soaked-through McGee.

‘Boss, Torres, this way’ he waved them through, relief evident on his face. ‘Victoria is about twenty-five meters down in an unstable mine shaft, accessible via only a narrow vent for about fifteen meters. The civil engineers and local experts are trying to find another access tunnel but for now, this is the only way down. The whole area along this valley is honeycombed with sinkholes so they can’t use heavy machinery to dig her out or drill a way down. The urgency is that with all this rain the vault she’s in is slowly collapsing and filling with water faster than they can pump it out and she’s hypothermic and can’t understand how to use the harness’ he finished his report succinctly, wiping the dripping rain off his forehead.

‘Ok, where’s Bishop?’

‘There’ McGee pointed to a short, helmeted person, suited in a red waterproof cover-all surrounded by similarly clad giant guys, being wired up and harnessed into climbing ropes.

_No, No No!_

‘Bishop, report?’ Gibbs didn’t even bother with the pleasantries. He didn’t need to be polite, he wanted answers.

‘Gibbs, they need someone to go down to hitch Victoria into the harness so they can pull her out, I’m all set’ she answered Gibbs professionally, not even glancing in his direction.

‘Can’t someone fully trained do that?’ Gibbs reasoned, even as the guys continued tightening straps around her waist and torso.

‘No, no time’ she shook her head adamantly, ‘they need someone petite enough to get down the access hole. I’m the only one here small enough to fit’

‘Ellie you can’t-,’ he started but was cut off with a stubborn glare.

‘I can and I will Torres’ she snapped back defiantly, ‘I’m _not_ leaving Victoria down there alone. The mine is filling with water, it’s unstable, there’s no one else, I’m ready’.

‘You’re not well enough’ he hissed urgently, blocking her path. Her ribs were still not healed, and he knew she still had that racking cough.

‘I’m doing it, Nick, get out of my way’ she sidestepped around him and let the rescue guys continue with her equipment prep and instruction.

Nick looked to Gibbs for back up, ‘Boss, please tell her no’ but the older guy just shook his head already persuaded and turned his attention back to firing questions at the lead engineer.

‘Ellie!’ he pleaded, his hand on her elbow attempting to stall her.

‘Stop Nick, you're wasting time we don’t have’ she nipped back at him and he dropped his hand in defeat. He wanted to say something, anything, but she beat him to it ‘It’s my fault, it’s on me Nick’ she muttered.

‘What? Ellie, _no_ -,’ he called after her, horrified as he recognised his own words he’d flung at her in anger when he got suspended.

But she was already wrapped up in intense conversation with the rescue crewman doing final safety checks of her harness, her headset radio and helmet light battery pack. The mine shaft entrance was surrounded by floodlights, cables and pumping ducts were being pulled out of the vent all to make room for Ellie to be lowered down. He overheard the crewman prepping her reiterating not to panic, that the shaft would be extremely snug for almost forty feet, she just had to keep calm and adjust her shoulders, roll them forward if she got wedged...

Nick felt sick just listening to it. As soon as she was down, they’d send down more supplies and drop the pumping hoses back down to try keep the water level low, as best they could. He caught her eye for just a second as she sat on the edge of the cavity, her legs already disappearing into the ground but then her attention was on the job at hand and all he could do was watch and wait with everyone else.

And then she was gone from view.

Nick only half-listened as McGee was busy telling them what had happened up to that point and that Melden, in custody in one of the ambulances, still wouldn’t give up any information about other possible entrances to the mine system. Gibbs stomped off to ‘have a word’ with him, giving Nick a direct order to stay put, no doubt knowing he’d happily rip the guy’s throat out.

He went instead to the newly-erected command tent attached to a decrepit caravan. The sick bastard had a state of the art CCTV system in place to watch his victims in that underground hellhole and Nick could just make out the little girl, her back flush to the walls of the dark cavity, the water lapping around her chest. Glow sticks thrown down the fissure by the rescuers floated on the water illuminating her frightened face with a rainbow of colours.

He listened intently as Doyle, the Chief of Technical Operations was on the radio to Ellie, his calm voice reassuring, encouraging her as she slowly negotiated her way down the shaft. The guys manning the ropes watched Doyle’s every hand signal as he somehow read the lay of the land, stopping and starting her descent as the camera showed pebbles and shingle splash into the water beside Victoria.

Then he saw the little girl wade out into the middle of the chamber just as Ellie’s legs descended into the frame. She’d made it! They all watched as she hugged the kid and lift her up into her arms, smoothing back her hair and checking her out for injuries. There was a flurry of activity all around him as the guys dropped the siphoning equipment back down and the pumps reverberated into action again.

She just had to get Victoria into the climbing harness now and they could haul her out, then Ellie would be pulled out and Jesus Christ he’d get his ass in gear and tell her everything, fix it between them-

Because she was everything to him and he needed to make sure she knew that.

The minutes ticked by and Gibbs reappeared, his head close to Doyle’s as they talked quietly. Doyle nodded and returned to his team. There was a lot of hushed dialogue going on between the engineers and rescue team over at the table covered in maps and surveys. The discussion escalated rapidly to heated as the guys started shouting over each other.

‘What’s up boss, something new?’

‘Once the water gets to a certain depth in the chamber Melden has it rigged to flood and that will collapse the chamber. He planned for Victoria to be his last ‘show’ apparently’ he explained curtly, tilting his jaw in disgust.

‘ _What_ , how?’

‘I don’t know Nick, I’m only repeating what the scumbag told me’ he snarled back furiously and Nick only now noticed the blood drying on Gibbs’s knuckles. He was quite sure Melden wasn’t so cocky after his ‘chat’ with Gibbs.

‘Doyle, pull them out now!’

‘We’re working on it Agent Torres, but the circumstances have changed’ he answered with the calmness of a man who faced catastrophe daily.

‘Changed how?’ Nick grilled, exasperated at the delay.

‘The access shaft is more unstable than we thought. We have another option; the potholers have tracked a tunnel from a couple of hundred meters west, they’re confident it’s another way in but they need specialised diving equipment, breathing apparatus-,’

‘You can’t seriously expect a five-year-old to scuba dive out?’ he retorted incredulously.

‘No, we think we can get her out via the shaft but there’s a high possibility it’ll cause a major subsidence’

‘You mean collapse, on top of Ellie! No, no way! Find another way guys, not happening!’

‘It’s the only way to get the girl out. Agent Bishop can be supported until we get the team to her.’

‘Have you told her about this BS plan?’ he growled back at the unfazed Chief.

‘Not yet, we’re still working out the details’

‘Let him talk to her, she trusts him’ Gibbs spoke quietly, brokering a peace with his authoritative tone as he nodded towards Nick.

‘Boss?’

‘Talk to her Torres, give her the options. She has a right to make the final decision’

He swallowed hard, desperate to talk to her yet sick to his stomach at what he was about to tell her. He really did think Gibbs was a better fit for this job; she wasn’t pissed off with Gibbs for starters. His boss wasn’t tied up in emotional knots either…

Chief Doyle handed the headset over to him and went back to join the team still debating options as Nick hesitantly pulled it on and cleared his throat.

‘Ellie, it’s me, Nick. I um-,’ he puffed out a breath, at a loss of where to start. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘How are you doing down there really?’

‘Nick? Why are-? Never mind’ she sounded surprised more than anything. ‘We’re ok, cold but ok. Victoria is having a little nap, the foil sheet is helping I think and the candy bar went down great. What’s going on Nick, where’s Doyle?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘He’s here, talking stuff over with the crew. Ellie, things have got complicated’ he stuttered over the word and steadied himself before he went on. ‘They can pull Victoria out the way you went in, but the shaft _could_ collapse. Or you can both wait, they’re looking at another way in, they’re close, but it’ll take time, the water will get higher and Melden says he’s rigged it cave-in at some point’. He rolled it all off in one breath keeping his tone as neutral as possible. He waited for her reply, some follow-up questions maybe but instead he got silence. ‘Ellie?’

‘Wow, a win-win, huh!’ she eventually replied sarcastically. He watched on the monitor screen as she shifted the child’s weight in her arms adjusting her body against her hip trying to keep the kid out of the chilly water.

Nick knew what her choice would be; same choice as he would make.

‘Tell them to pull Victoria out ASAP. I’ll be fine waiting’

‘Ellie, the risk-,’

‘Yeah, I heard you, Nick. She’s just a baby, get her out’.

‘Ok, B. I’ll tell them’ he muttered in defeat yet so incredibly proud of her at the same time. ‘I’ll see you soon, B, I’ll be right here waiting’.

‘Promise?’ she asked, her voice wavering a little.

‘Yeah, I promise Ellie’

The next ten minutes were tortuous. With the rain still hammering down, the generators and pump engines roaring and voices shouting over each other as everyone stepped up their game readying themselves for the next stage of the rescue.

He burned with impatience as there was absolutely nothing he could do.

The ground was churned up now, slick mud making footing treacherous, but Nick didn’t care. He stood at the screen watching and listening while Doyle ran through the safety protocols, the evac plan and contingencies in case of ‘structural failure’ with Ellie again. Even if the access shaft collapsed Ellie should be fine, Doyle told her, the main chamber was rock-faced rather than soil.

It _should_ withstand.

He could see Ellie prepping the kid, checking the harness, explaining she’d be seeing her mom and dad really soon. Nick looked up over the clearing to see Jimmy holding his wife in a tight embrace, Ducky in his camel-coloured gaberdine on one side, Sloane in a yellow mac on the other.

Everything went quiet as the team started to winch Victoria out via the shaft and everyone collectively held their breath. Every second dragged, every creak of rope or every splash as gravel hit the water made his heart gallop. Less than five meters to go and the guys stopped as Doyle held up his hand. Nick watched Ellie prop herself flush to the cave wall on the monitor as the slow trickle of falling grit became a splashing torrent of rubble into the lower chamber. A frenzy of activity erupted at the mouth of the shaft as the men used brute force on the ropes like they were in a ‘tug o’ war’, battling against the earth itself. Finally, the tiny frame of a muddy little girl surfaced above ground but as the team grabbed her, a rumble was heard from down the shaft, Everyone froze, listening, and all eyes in the tent flicking to the monitors but just like that, the video footage cut out.

Doyle shouted down the radio ‘Bishop? Agent Bishop, Ellie? Respond!’

Nothing, just the sizzle of static white noise.

In that moment something broke inside him, every rational thought deserted him, and a feral growl erupted from him as he lost it. Gibbs had to hold him back with his rock-hard grip, wrestling with him to stall him as he scrambled across the distance towards the cordoned-off area around the opening of the shaft, hell-bent on clawing his way down through the dirt and rock to get to her.

‘Easy Torres! Stand down!’ Gibbs barked at him, bringing him back to himself. ‘She’s tough, they’ve planned for this, they’ll get to her’. Gibbs said each statement with an air of certainty all the while locking him in an icy glare as he struggled to control his erratic breathing. Nick gave him the barest of nods, not trusting himself to speak.

‘Patience Torres, now we wait’

But no one would ever accuse Nick Torres of being a _patient_ man.


	11. Unfathomable

In the inky dark, she felt only a powdery sprinkling of soil falling onto her face now. The cold rock around her was finally stationary, yet it closed in on her all the same. The pressure of the earth above weighed down on her as it cracked and creaked, hissed and groaned. With each tense breath she forced herself not to hyperventilate on the stagnant air. The key to this was preventing the fear escalating into all-out panic. All that would lead to was more terror and the possibility of injuries she could not afford. Underfoot the loose stones shifted, twisting her ankle one way and then the other, and the reverberating noise of those disturbed rocks echoed off the dense stone walls. Ahead was the sound of water dripping and trickling into more water.

She was buried deep. She _had_ to stop thinking about that.

The cave was engulfed in chilling blackness. The absence of light was absolute. Her helmet headlight had cut out and the glowsticks that had illuminated the cavern had vanished, washed away maybe in the deluge of water that had followed the mudslide just after Victoria was pulled out.

She got out though, she had to have, right? She was so close to the surface before the collapse.

Ellie clung to the belief that the little girl was currently being hugged and kissed by Jimmy and Breena, being wrapped up in warm blankets and being brought home to her own bed and that her memories of this day would fade away like a bad dream.

Now all she had to do was wait for her own rescue and hope the chamber she was in remained stable and that the water now just over her waist didn’t get any higher. Minutes passed in silence before she remembered.

_Shit, the god-damn radio!_

In the pitch dark, she ran her chilled and trembling fingers over the wiring from her headset to the sealed battery pack until she figured out the problem, popping the connector back into position. A loud squeal whistled as she adjusted the volume then her heart leapt as she heard Doyle’s crackly voice repeat her name. ‘Bishop, respond if you are receiving-,’

‘Yes! I’m here, I’m ok!’

A roar of celebratory cheering blasted down her earpiece. She gave him a quick status report and he returned with his own; Victoria was fine, help was on the way she just had to wait it out. He reassured her they had prepared for this. Her suit had other glowsticks in the side pockets, there was a small flashlight duct-taped to the side of her helmet and best of all they still had a patent conduit running down to her so they could run an air supply line down if needed. She just had to stay calm and hold tight. She pulled out a glowstick and snapping it into neon-yellow action threaded it under the strap of her watch to free up her hand, feeling ludicrously comforted by even that tiny radiance of light.

‘Bishop, I’m going to pass you back over to your _team-mate_ up here, he’s anxious to talk with you’ Doyle chirped good-naturedly with maybe a little teasing in his tone.

_Fuck, Nick!_

She mentally kicked herself for sounding so needy, to him of all people, but when he said he’d be waiting for her, in that moment, hell _every_ moment, that was what she wanted with every cell in her body.

But she had seen him with someone else, canoodling with that woman, only days after they’d been together on the ship, and he’d obviously been avoiding her…

She was, however, in a precariously dangerous situation and there was stuff she wanted to say, things she needed to get off her chest in case this went, well, even shittier than it already was.

‘Ellie, are you ok? Are you hurt?’ he demanded straight off the bat, always the questions about her health!

‘No Nick, I’m ok’ she answered tightly in an effort to disguise how disheartened she was.

‘Jesus you scared the shit out of me, us, when we lost contact’

‘Yeah, loose wire’ she shrugged coolly like this whole scenario was an everyday thing.

‘Ellie, I need to exp-,’

‘Stop Nick, I know ok. Melden, of all people, told me you’ve been following him, staking out his house’.

‘I should have just told you about that but I was a self-centred, self-absorbed asshole, I was just so mad when they arrested Kudov, I couldn’t let the Melden thing go. And I was ashamed that I had resented you when you were only doing the right thing, by the book’

‘Nick, you were right about Melden, he told me. _He_ planted the hair himself and pulled his confession stunt with you hoping to get arrested and the case thrown out. That was his plan. But when that didn’t work because I baulked, he chose Victoria so we’d pay attention. She could’ve died today because I went ‘by the book’ instead of my gut, so you were right, it _is_ on me.’

‘That’s bullshit B-,’

‘If I’d have backed you up then, none of this would have happened. I’m sorry I doubted you, about _that_ anyways’ she mumbled in addendum.

‘Ellie?’

‘It doesn’t matter Nick, I get it, but I hope we can still be work partners even if you’ve moved on-,’

‘Moved on? Ellie, what the hell are you talking about?’

‘You and whoever _she_ is’

‘She who?’

God, she hated this, having to explain herself, letting him know that she was hurt and mad and yes _jealous_ as hell! ‘Last Sunday, I _saw_ you with her Nick, outside your apartment-,’ she snapped in exasperation.

‘ _Audrey_?’

‘Whatever, I saw you hugging her when you told me you were working’

‘Ellie, you’ve got this all wrong. I know Audrey from my undercover days, she’s NCIS, retired now but Gibbs sent her to help with the surveillance. Unofficial and off-the-clock, as a favour.’

‘ _Gibbs?_ ’

‘Yeah Gibbs, he knew I was shadowing Melden on my own time, did some stints himself, he didn’t think the FBI had the right guy either’

‘So, you're _not_ dating her?’ she covered her mouth with her palm trying to stifle a sob that threatened to erupt from her.

‘No Ellie, I’m an asshole, not an idiot! Her wife would probably kill me!’ he chuckled then his tone changed suddenly serious. ‘I’m so sorry I pushed you away the past couple of weeks, none of this is your fault’

‘I guess we should have-, oww!’ A large cobble had dropped from the ceiling and hit her on the shoulder, another bruise to add to her growing collection.

‘Ellie! What- what’s happening?’

‘I’m ok it’s just a small rockfall, I’m fine’ she reassured him rubbing her shoulder. ‘Any update on the cavers getting to me?’ she asked optimistically, her fingers counting out the five other glowsticks in her side-pocket and she mentally came up with a plan to ration them. She heard him confer with other voices and then he was back.

‘Um, no exact timeframe but they’re making progress’ he reported a little too brightly, she knew him too well. She’d have to ration the sticks a little more conservatively she calculated, trying her best not to think about the crushing weight of thousands of tonnes of rock above her.

‘You ok?’ he asked carefully as her silence dragged on.

‘Cold, Nick, I’m cold and starving. Do you think Dominos deliver to here?’ she asked playfully, her mouth instantly watering at the thought of gooey cheese and mountains of carbs.

‘I still owe you pizza, I could book us a window table at Carlucci’s…have some dinner, tiramisu, some wine…?

‘That sounds awfully like a date, Nick.’

‘Yeah’ he added expectantly, and she could totally imagine his cheeky, cheesy smirk that lit up his face and sent sparks from her fingertips to her toes.

‘I think I’ll have to say no, I’m definitely washing my hair tonight’ she countered airily. Well, it was the truth!

‘You- you don’t want pizza, with me?’ he stammered nervously.

‘Oh, I want pizza…but not out, maybe at home, some Netflix and chill like we used to’

‘Like we used to as _friends_ , Ellie, is that what you want, _all_ you want?’ she could hear the tension in his voice and she felt mean to tease him but she had to know, she had to know where she stood, enough with the guessing, the speculating and the trying to figure out his damn feelings.

‘What do _you_ want Nick?’ she asked bluntly and held her breath in case he broke her heart.

‘I want _you_ , Ellie, to be with you if you’ll let me. That’s _all_ I want’

‘I want you too Nick, and as soon-, Woah!’ she yelped, her words were washed away as a wall of water hit her chest almost knocking her over. A thunderous rumbling and persistent splashing told her the roof was starting to crumble some more. She backed herself up against the solid rock wall as Doyle had told her to and she was only in the brace position when more rocks and gravel started falling, closer this time, pebbles and shingle ricocheting off the walls hammering her hardhat and peppering her face with stinging attacks. She could just make out Nick’s shouts over the radio, but the clamour of the falling earth was deafening and instinctively she covered her ears to protect herself. She grunted in pain as rocks and cobbles bounced against her legs under the water, and the pull of the water current increased exponentially.

Deeper, the water was getting deeper. Fast.

She climbed up onto one of the bigger displaced boulders to give herself some extra height which worked for a couple of minutes until she had to swim, treading water, keeping her chin above the waterline. She reached up, her fingertips brushed the ceiling.

‘ _Ellie_? Bishop! Please, respond!’ he yelled down the earpiece, his voice a frenzy of panic.

‘Nick, I’m ok!’ she spluttered, ‘There was another cave-in, bigger this time. The chamber is filling fast!’ she gulped, the effort of staying afloat in the cold water winding her.

‘The guys are almost there, B, just stay calm. Can you find the air-line they sent down the access duct? If you can find it, hold onto that ok, no matter what, hold onto that, just in case’.

‘Ok’ she pulled the flashlight off her helmet and scanned the dripping ceiling for the pipe trying not to panic at how close she was to the roof now or that he was telling her to get ready to use piped O2 in case…in case…

She could feel the panic brewing inside her, her chest burned with the sensation of not enough air, there wasn’t enough no matter how deeply she breathed, no matter how fast she panted.

‘Nick…I can’t…breathe’ she gasped, her arms flailing about as she tried to find her buoyancy in the swirling water.

‘You can do this B, please babe, just breathe ok. Slow it down, count it out with me-,’

‘I see it, the pipeline!’ she blurted and dragged herself through the water and anchored herself to the yellow plastic tube. She could hear the hissing and bubbling as the O2 flowed through it and she calmed her herself.

Air, she had access to air, and something to hold on to.

‘Nick? You still there’ suddenly she was terrified the radio had finally died.

‘I’m here’

‘Nick, I want you to do something for me, if this…’

‘Ellie, don’t’ he growled in a warning but she _had_ to continue.

‘Tell my family it was quick ok? Mom’s claustrophobic, it would haunt her if she knew I was, you know, trapped and and um, tell my brothers-,’ she was blathering now, nervous anxiety getting the better of her.

‘Ellie stop, no goodbye speeches, no last requests, you’re getting out of there, there’s a pizza waiting for you with your name written all over it! And there’s me, _I’m_ waiting for you ok?’ his voice cracked over the last bit.

‘Ok-,’

‘Hold up B, they’re getting an update from the potholer crew’. Nick must have put his hand or something over his mic because all she got was scrambled words and hissing interference for the next couple of minutes.

‘Nick?’ she tapped on her own mic, ‘Nick, eh hello! Want to tell _me_ what’s going on?’ she snapped in irritation.

‘Ellie, can you see a light? Probably under you somewhere in the cavern’, he asked seriously.

‘Um, no, but give me a sec’, she shoved the dimly luminous glow-stick up her sleeve and waited for her eyes to acclimatise to the absolute dark.

Blackness enveloped her. The sounds of dripping water closed in around her, filling her with a deep dread. Red and black splotches danced in front of her and she couldn't remember if her eyes were opened or closed.

Nothing, she could see nothing.

She moved her head around concentrating on every angle, forcing her eyes to penetrate the murk, as her frustration and stress escalated.

Then it was there, a beam of light, dull and distant but definitely there.

‘Yes, Nick I can see it!’ she told him elatedly, ‘it’s way down the passageway and deep under the water but I can see it!’

‘Amazing Ellie, thank god! Just hold tight, they’re working out the logistics but you're almost there babe’. She was so delighted she didn’t even tell him to quit calling her babe.

More heated discussions ensued with the above-ground crew that ended with Nick impatiently replying ‘I’ll tell her’.

‘Tell me what Nick?’

‘Ellie, the gap they’ve found through to the next gallery is really narrow. They can’t risk widening it so you’ll need to dive down and squeeze through. They have breathing apparatus waiting for you on the other side and they’ll be with you once you're through that gap’.

‘How long is the passage?’

‘No more than two meters…it’ll be snug and you’ll be holding your breath. Ellie?’

‘Yeah, I hear you, just um, give me a minute ok?’ she exhaled slowly as her analytical mind extrapolated the information.

‘You can do this Ellie, you’re a good swimmer, they’ll be there to pull you through, you just have to follow the light’

‘Not exactly a reassuring thing to say in a life-or-death situation, Torres!’ she snorted.

‘Huh?’

‘Follow the light?’ she guffawed, her giddiness escalating with her growing fear.

He barked out a laugh as he realised what he’d said. ‘But, you are heaven-sent and kinda angelic, honey’

‘Nick! Don’t call me that! _Honey’s_ for drizzling on stuff you're going to eat’ she told him primly.

‘Well, now you're just giving me ideas!’

‘Nick! Shush!’

‘I bet you taste heavenly’ he hummed back in that ridiculously sexy voice of his.

‘ _Shut up_! I’m _trying_ to concentrate’ she retorted, wriggling in embarrassment, sorry she’d ever scolded him!

‘You're babbling in Spanish, and is that _Italian_?’

‘You know I babble when I’m stressed’ she reminded him automatically in his own language.

‘Then you need to stop talking now, shush!’

‘Make me!’ she snapped back childishly just like she would when one of her brothers told her to put a sock in it and shut the hell up.

‘I will but you might moan a bit’ he teased in his trademark gravelly voice, that unique accented, cadence sending electrical voltage buzzing through her.

‘ _Nick_! Seriously! Jeez can anyone else hear you?’ she hissed back, scandalised and blushing like crazy even with the cold.

He laughed out loud and it was such a joyous sound the stress and anxiety just melted away. She huffed out a laugh too knowing this was exactly what he was trying to do with his blatantly saucy suggestions.

‘Nobody can hear us, babe, it’s just us, the rest of the crew have moved to the entrance of the secondary tunnel, where I will meet you really soon ok? When you’re all set you need to take off the radio headset, empty your pockets, make sure you have nothing that you could get snagged on but keep your helmet on ok, no head injuries, deal?’

‘Deal’ she shivered as the last of her adrenaline pumped through her.

‘So, let’s take some deep breaths-,’

‘Nick! I don’t think I can do this, going underwater after the helicopter crash…’

‘You can, Ellie, you're the bravest person I know. Just don’t overthink it; play a song in your head. Take some deep breaths and just head towards the light. I’ll see you soon.’

She clenched her hands into fists, closed her eyes and concentrated on slowing her respiration rate again.

She was ready. Now or never.

‘Ok, I’m switching the radio off now. See you soon Nick’

She deliberately didn’t make it a big, soppy goodbye. She needed to be calm and collected, confident that everything would be just fine.

It was just the cold making her shaking fingers fumble.

She pulled out the rest of her glow sticks and cracked them into life, shoving a couple under her watch strap and the rest half-way up her elasticated sleeves to illuminate her hands.

Nick, she needed to get back to Nick.

She cleared her mind of everything else. Humming the boppy, fun beat of her favourite _A-ha_ hit, _Take On Me_ , she fixed her gaze on the flickering underwater light, took a lung-filling breath, sunk beneath the water, and swam.


	12. Plain sailing

‘You can, Ellie, you're the bravest person I know. Just don’t overthink it; play a song in your head. Take some deep breaths and just head towards the light. I’ll see you soon.’

It took everything he had to keep the fear from his voice. He was alone in the makeshift tent, the hastily thrown together lean-to attached to the clapped-out caravan was sodden, sploshes dripped from accumulating pool of rainwater on the sagging tarpaulin cover. All the screens that sick bastard had viewed his perverse entertainments were now dark, the feed cut when the first rock-slip happened as Victoria was pulled out. As the hours passed and Ellie's situation had become more perilous, more precarious, the tent gradually emptied out of personnel, leaving him free to talk to her with a modicum of privacy.

He had seen their bleak faces, their pitying expressions. They thought this would end badly, that these words he was sharing with her would be their last.

The chances of rescue diminished with every mudslide, landfall and partial cave-in. The mine was too unstable, the rain was torrential and unrelenting, so the water-table was rising further reducing the structural integrity of the chamber and increasing her likelihood of drowning before they got to her. She was too deep, too far down, too far away from him. There was nothing he could do to help her other than use every bit of his charming ability to keep her calm, upbeat, to tell her everything would be ok, that they would get her out in time…that he wanted her, wanted to be with her...

_I should have told her I love her!_

He clenched his fists into tight balls of frustration and self-loathing again. He should’ve said it, but he didn’t because he reckoned if he did, she’d guess how bad things really were topside. He’d heard a hushed voice in the crowded tent earlier, whispered words of ‘rescue’ changing to ‘recovery’ as a more ‘realistic objective’, and his head exploded. He’d savagely glowered around the command centre, his breath coming out in steaming snorts as he tried to identify the jerk who thought he knew better than Nick.

There would be no _giving up_ on Ellie, the only body-bag that would be needed was for the idiot spouting-off crap!

Gibbs had placed a calming and rock-hard restraining grip on his shoulder as the offending guy had the decency to look abashed at his aired opinion. When he started a hasty apology, his ferocious glare became a murderous growl as Nick battled with his instinctive need to punch something; the idiot would do nicely.

Gibbs brought him back though, refocusing him to the matter at hand. Ellie was down there alone, she needed him to talk to her not hear about him being carted off on an assault charge!

Gibbs had called in a favour with the Army Engineer Corps, their best guy had been choppered in to liaise with the civilian fire and rescue but even he looked grim when appraised of the situation. Everything pinned on the amateur cavers and potholer hobbyists currently tracking and tracing routes underground, following the watercourses back upstream from a flooded and dilapidated mine entrance a couple of hundred meters away.

It seemed so unlikely that they would find her but either by fluke, expertise or miracle they had.

He’d been in some hairy situations in his life, ticking bombs, guns to his head, badass ruthless criminals intent on killing him but this had him white-lipped and sweating buckets as he mentally counted the seconds from the moment she switched off her radio. He bolted from the tent and ran like his life depended on it, because it did- _what was the point without her?_

He followed the cables and muddy boot prints along a newly churned-up pathway through the dripping conifer woods to the second operations base at the mouth of the rocky gully. The whole area was heaving with people hollering into radios, shouting orders, calling for supplies over the roar of the multiple generators powering the floodlights, the pumps, the survey equipment. O2 cylinders were neatly stacked and a guy in a full wetsuit was having his breathing apparatus checked on the banks of the gurgling waterway spewing out of the open metal grid half-hidden in a crevice. He noticed the paramedics too, prepping resus equipment, readying a backboard, double-checking the IV syringes already drawn up with medications.

He didn’t want to think about why they thought they would need that stuff.

It’d taken him just over two minutes to run through the woods to this location, and he expected it to take a fair while longer for Ellie and the underground team to negotiate their way out, even with everything going to plan. But as the minutes ticked by, he found himself holding his breath until his lungs burned, checking his watch again, calculating the distance, imagining everything that could go wrong…

Maybe she couldn’t dive for long enough, maybe she panicked and couldn’t do it, maybe he should go back to the tent to try see if her radio was still working?

Maybe she couldn’t fit through the passageway linking the chambers? Or got stuck?

He was torn between staying and going back, doing something or just waiting.

No, Nick Torres was not a patient man!

If he had anything in his stomach he would’ve hurled it up by now, his guts churning and knotting as the minutes kept on adding up. Pacing helped a little, every nerve and muscle in his body was coiled tight enough to snap.

Twenty-four minutes and he started whispering prayers from his childhood, making bargains with celestial beings seemed like fair exchange for her safety he thought absentmindedly.

A sudden change in the noise level and activity around him shuck him out of his stupor, bodies crowded around the mouth of the flooded gully.

He hung back, his nerves shot that this would be the moment he’d find out she hadn’t made it out alive. The memory of her still lifeless body in the ocean only a couple of weeks ago overwhelmed his mind. He couldn’t see that again and not fall apart.

A tumultuous whoop of cheers erupted from the crowd but he didn’t dare to believe until he glimpsed her petite red-suited back being stripped of an oxygen tank and scuba apparatus, the tubing getting all tangled in the loose tendrils of her soaked blonde hair. Paramedics and crew flocked around her and she was submerged in a sea of High-Vis bodies checking her out, congratulating the other divers, back-slapping and high-fiving aplenty. But his eyes were locked on her, through gaps he could see her hug the rescue divers, she was muddy and wet, she had some scuffs and grazes on her face but she was ok.

Her eyes darted around the assembled guys searching until she found him, and his breath came out in a whoosh. He waited patiently for about twenty seconds as an ambulance guy wrapped a foil sheet around her and shining a light into her eyes and doing the ‘follow my finger thing’ but she kept turning her head towards him and he _couldn’t_ wait. He started through the crowd ‘politely’ elbowing and nudging his way to her until he broke through and they just hurtled into each other’s arms he holding her in a tight bearhug. Vaguely in the background, over the jackhammering of his heart, he heard hooting and applause. He could feel her body shaking against his, either the cold or overstrung emotions getting the better of her. He pulled back, his palms on her cold cheeks and tipped her face up so he could really look at her.

‘Nick, I’m so sorry I-,’

He had to shut her up right there with his lips on hers and the cacophony of hollering and wolf-whistling was deafening and he didn’t care that there was Rule 12 or that Gibbs and McGee and half the state’s emergency services were right there or that tv crews were hovering above. 

He just didn’t care.

He was kissing Ellie and to hell with the lot of them! It was reassuring though that she kissed him back just as enthusiastically.

‘Don’t you ever go scaring me like that again, Bishop!’

Her shoulders were shaking with pent-up sobs and the bottoming-out of her adrenaline reserves. He kissed her on the forehead and gave her another tight hug.

‘Come on, let’s get you checked out properly’ he suggested when he’d eventually calmed himself

‘I’m fine, I don’t want to go to the hospital’

‘ _Ellie_!’

‘No please, look Ducky’s here, I’ll go back to NCIS and then home, _please_ Nick, I just want to go home’.

‘Ok, if that’s what you really want’ he reluctantly caved, powerless to withstand her pleading.

She nodded wholeheartedly, her shoulders dropping in relief when he informed the paramedics that their own doctor would be taking over her care. Even with his arms wrapped around her to support her, he could feel her trembling as she became increasingly jelly-legged, exhaustion replacing her initial elation at being out. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east and the rain had eased to a drizzle as he helped her into the car, Duckie as passenger and Gibbs driving. The boss didn’t mention the kissing, but he definitely had a smirk that screamed indulgent exasperation with both of them.

He could live with that.

He expected Ellie to doze off once she warmed up in the car especially as she was wedged up against him on the back seat. Instead, she was chattering, reporting how she’d tracked down the property, how Melden was responsible for his brother’s death too. She asked about Victoria, Jimmy and Breena but she scrupulously avoided talking about being down in the mine. Gibbs asked her some questions related to the case, updated her on Melden’s condition after her GSWs and that they had enough on him that he wouldn’t see the light of day again. Nick tucked the foil sheets around her tight enough that she looked like a burrito but even in the dim dawn light, he could see her chin wobbling with shivers. Her clothing was soaked through and nothing short of a hot shower and warm dry clothes would fix that.

Once back at NCIS they went straight to autopsy where Ducky checked her over. Although Gibbs had the good grace to wait outside, Nick pretty much hovered over her until Ducky gave him a pointed look.

‘Nick I’m fine, go, get changed before you catch cold’. It was only then he realised his jeans were knee-deep in mud splatters and everything else was damp from the constant dreary rain.

‘Ok but I’ll be right back’

‘As soon as Ducky is finished with me I’ll grab a shower and change into some scrubs. Can you um, maybe find me some dry shoes? My go-bag was in my truck still parked up at the Melden place’

‘Yeah I’ll find something for your tiny feet’ he smiled though still reluctant to actually leave her.

‘Go, _shoo_! No pun intended’, she laughed flicking him away with her hand.

God, he had missed her silliness!

Showering quickly in the gym locker-room and pulling on a fresh tee-shirt, sweats and hoodie he felt instantly better. He headed to Kasie’s lab and poked about until he found some trainers and made his way to the ladies shower-room. He knew it’d be empty except for Ellie; it was still early on a Sunday morning and the offices were mostly deserted. Still, he knocked, calling out as he entered the wet-room area just in case.

‘B, just me, I grabbed Kasie’s runners, she’s about your size and um, I had a fresh pair of socks … _Ellie_?’

He could hear the shower running and steam was misting up the mint-green tiled area but there was no reply. His hackles bristling, he slowly moved to the curtained-off cubical,

‘Ellie, you ok?’

When he heard a stifled sob, he pulled the curtain aside slowly and found her sitting on the floor of the shower, her head on her knees, still fully dressed just crying as the hot spray drenched her.

‘Ellie, are you ok? Please talk to me’

‘I’m ok, I’m just…need a minute-,’ she hiccupped out through her sniffs and snuffles.

‘Let’s get you out of these wet things’, he spoke softly as he pulled her upright and started undressing her, tugging off the red overall, and helping as she stepped out of it. He pulled off her sweater, unbuttoned her blouse and yanked off her jeans.

He didn’t think about anything else because he was not a dick and she needed him, this _so_ wasn’t a sexual opportunity but it was intimate all the same, it was about trust and support, about being there for each other whenever it was needed.

Once she was just in her underwear, he left her to do the last bits herself. His eyes focused on the angry bruises across her back, shoulders and legs blighting her pale skin as he coaxed her to stand under the hot spray again. He smiled as she gradually hummed in pleasure as she lathered up her hair with shampoo he had ‘borrowed’ for her. He had the towel ready when she turned off the shower and wrapped her up in pulling her close to his body.

‘You’ll get all wet’ she objected

‘Don’t care’ he muttered, rubbing her briskly with the towel. ‘What did Ducky say?’

‘All good, just minor cuts and bruises and um, some more antibiotics for my chest, it’s still not clear and he reckoned the mine water could have contaminants’. Nick just nodded not trusting himself with a reply.

Sitting her on her bench he pulled the scrub top over her head and bent down threading her legs into the pants.

‘Nick I can-,’

‘Shush you’re exhausted Ellie, let me help’.

‘Ok’ she smiled without a fight as he slipped on the too-big socks and laced up the trainers.

He towel-dried her hair and loosely plaited it until she could comb it through at home.

‘Thanks, Nick’

‘You’re welcome …babe’ pressing a quick kiss on her head, ‘Ready for home?’ he asked before she could argue back.

As they emerged from the changing room a small group had gathered, the whole team by the looks of it, front and centre was Palmer, his face still pale with strain but he wordlessly took her into a hug.

Pulling back, he was wiping his tears, ‘Thank you, Ellie, we can never repay you for what you did-,’

‘Jimmy, I’m just happy she’s ok, that’s thanks enough for me!’

Vance looked around the team, ‘Mandatory leave for one week, _everyone_ ’, he raised his eyebrows as the group suddenly collectively beamed with grins but added seriously, ‘This case was too close to home. Jack, I expect you’ll follow up individually to debrief. Excellent work Agent Bishop. Now everyone, go home.’

After several more hugs, it was just him and Ellie walking out towards the parking lot. Stopping her at the outer door he hauled off his hoodie and pulled it over her head despite her half-hearted protests and if he got a kick out of seeing her snuggling into his clothes well, that was just a bonus.

She was asleep before they parked up outside her building. He carefully lifted her up and using his emergency key he let them into her apartment and gently laid her on the sofa. He had no idea of the time; he’d missed so much sleep over the past few days he was borderline delirious. Adjusting her head on the cushions he shimmied himself beside her so her head was resting on his lap and with his fingers caressing her still damp hair he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

He wasn’t sure what woke him though he suspected it was his own snoring. He had a crick in his neck from lolling his head over the back of the sofa and as he worked out his kinks with his fingers he smoothed his other hand over Ellie's shoulder luxuriating in having her so close. The movement had her blinking awake, stretching and yawning, reorientating herself to her surroundings.

‘Hey,’ she whispered drowsily.

‘Hey you’ he bent forward and kissed her on the forehead, ‘how are you feeling?’

‘Stiff, sore and starving!’ her stomach gurgled on cue to accentuate her point.

‘I owe you pizza, you still up for that? Or I can make you a quick omelette and we can go to bed if you want to sleep some more?’

‘Huh?’

‘You haven’t eaten anything since god knows when but maybe you need the rest more? Ellie?

‘We?’ her eyes widened in surprise and he replayed what he’d said until hit on it.

‘Oh, yeah sorry, _you_ ’ he backpedalled frantically but then slammed on the brakes. ‘Actually-no! Ellie, I mean _we_ , I need to be with you ok? I just about lost my mind today or last night or whatever the hell time it is, so if you don’t mind I’m not ready to let you out of my sight again just yet…maybe _ever_ ’ he admitted in an emphatic, flustered rush. He flicked his eyes to hers and when he didn’t see horror or irritation, he took a steadying breath and continued in a calmer tone. ‘I want to stay here with you, close to you…tonight. Look, we can talk about stuff tomorrow after we both sleep but I need-,’

‘Nick, it’s ok. I need you too’ she told him with a shy smile.

‘So, pizza?’ he asked still battling to control the goofy smile on his face.

‘God yes! But you don’t need to go to Carlucci’s, Joey’s on the corner will be just fine and faster!

‘Whatever you want, _honey_ ’ he muttered with a wink and jumped back in time to avoid her back-handed swat.

After pizza and a couple of beers they watched some tv, Ellie still nestled in his hoodie all rolled up against him, his arm curled around her and he realised this was all he wanted, this was enough. He was done chasing drama and living on the edge. He wanted this. He dropped another kiss on her head and felt her sag slightly as tiredness overwhelmed her.

‘Ellie, come on, bedtime’ he crooned, combing his fingers through her hair, still enjoying the moment. Eventually, her eyes fluttered awake and standing up, he hauled her to her feet. They each went through the motions of preparing for bed, he locked up and turned out the lights while she went to the bathroom. When he came out himself in his tee-shirt and boxers he found her already in bed and a sudden bolt of nervous anxiety hit him.

He didn’t want to pressure her into having him in her bed, maybe they still needed time…

‘Ellie, I can sleep on the couch if you- if you don’t want me-,’

She flipped the duvet back to reveal-

_Fuck, she’s naked!_

‘Come to bed Nick’

He didn’t need to be asked twice.

They made love slowly, he lingered over her body kissing away all the hurt and discomforts of the past weeks. Being with Ellie like this; the intimacy, the familiarity and the novelty of discovery as their bodies moved over and against one another, was nothing like anything he had ever experienced. Onboard the Bainbridge had been urgent, frenetic, a heady mix of lust, desire and raw need. Now every movement was slowed down, every loving touch was deliberate, every taste was relished all for maximum sensation, creating an infinite bond of trust. Their bodies just fit together, it just felt right.

All the same at the decisive moment he hesitated, braced above her, still wondering how to be sure this is what she wanted in the darkness of the room.

‘Ellie, we don’t have to do this now, if you want to wait…?’

‘We’ve wasted enough time Nick’ her palm cupped his cheek, and she ran her thumb over his lower lip. She pulled him into a deeper kiss as she widened the space for his hips between her thighs and he pushed home. His mouth dropped open in a gasp at the feel of her slick heat surrounding him as he smoothly glided in until he was deep inside her. He stilled for a few seconds allowing them both to revel in the sensation of being connected in the most intimate of ways and then he moved into her again - over and over, slow and passionate with her breasts brushing against his chest with the rocking of their hips, as he worshipped her body with everything he had. 

Later the soft amber streetlight flooded over them as they basked in the tenderness and satisfied exhaustion of having shared their bodies more than once.

‘I love you Ellie’ he told her; his eyes locked with hers as he brushed her cheek with his thumb. The words had come from his soul, not out of fear of losing her but out of joy for having her in his life.

‘I know’, she smiled, ‘I love you too, Nick’, kissing his wrist affectionately and burying her head in the crook of his neck.

‘I know’ he smiled back tightening his arm around her, his heart almost bursting with happiness.

**Epilogue**

She watched him surreptitiously through her sunglasses as he did another lap of the pool luxuriating in the sunshine, the heat of the day. DC was still chilly even this late into April but here in the Florida Keys, they had enjoyed sun-kissed days and balmy evenings eating out, watching the sunset over the ocean. It had been a lucky break that his cousin Miguel and his new wife Estella had needed someone to housesit for two weeks while they headed to Italy on honeymoon. Just them in a mansion of a house with a private pool and it was perfect timing.

Things with Nick were just that, perfect.

Sure, she still had some issues after all that had happened. The nightmares had settled easily enough because he was always right there to wake her and comfort her until she fell back asleep. She’d tried some of Jack’s techniques for dealing with nerves when flying but most of her control on that front had come from a determination to do her job and planes and helicopters out to naval vessels were part of that. So yeah, she might flick an elastic band on her wrist and play very questionable, very cheesy pop on her ear-pods during turbulence, but she was coping and that was ok.

The fear of water thing though was stubbornly sticking, and Nick was determined to help her work through that too. He’d started small and had been, by his calculation very successful. She could now take a bath and if he _had_ to be in the tub with her until she settled her nerves well, that was a win-win. Bath time was her particular favourite time, the sensation of lying against him, being surrounded by him the warm water, as he took advantage of the freedom to explore with slippery soapy hands…she blushed, squeezing her legs together as that tingling started up, _again_.

Being turned on by even thinking about Nick was a frequent occurrence but sometimes it was also just a need to pee, so she put down her book and hauled herself up from the sun lounger.

Like a hawk, he had spotted her movement and swam to the edge of the pool in a single powerful stroke.

‘You need a hand up, babe?’

‘Nah I’m good, BOB here is just pressing on momma’s bladder, again’ she smiled smoothing her hand over her very obviously rounded tummy now her midriff was exposed in a bikini.

‘Be careful on the steps’ he called after her, his nerves fried since her centre of gravity shifted around about the same time she hit six months pregnant. Walking through the cool airy house she caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror. She really did glow, a combination maybe of pregnancy hormones, mild sunburn on her usually pale skin and a flush of real happiness.

So yeah, the pregnancy was unexpected!

After the Bainbridge episode of crazy irresponsibility, she’d started taking her contraceptive pill as soon as she got home. She’d continued to take it religiously even when she and Nick weren’t talking for those couple of weeks not wanting to face into the second period in a month if she stopped it suddenly. She was still taking it when they got together and they’d relied on that protection as they had sex…a lot of sex…like making love in every room, in every position…hell even the office storeroom got christened!

But what they both forgot about were the antibiotics she was taking for her chest infection. Those babies completely negated her birth control and hey presto here they were, about to be parents in a couple of months, and they couldn’t be happier.

Ok, Nick _might_ be happier if he could wrap her in cotton wool for the whole nine months, but she really didn’t mind his overprotectiveness. BOB was their affectionate name for her little lodger, deriving from early pregnancy when Nick all but waved a red flag in front of her as she walked to clear her path announcing, ‘Baby On Board!’.

It was sweet and it was more than a little bit of a turn on…well pretty much Nick’s _every_ word, look and touch was a turn on, pregnancy it seemed made her as horny as hell! He didn’t complain though he had upped his protein shake regime! In revenge his in public suggestive teasing was relentless, even McGee had told them to get a room last week!

Strolling back to the pool with a Vietnamese menu in her hand she found Nick watching her with his elbows folded on the tiled edge, his hair wet and his shoulders glistening with droplets of water.

‘Hey cariño, come sit’ he patted the ledge and gave her an encouraging smile as her eyes darted from his face to the sparkling blue depths of the water surrounding him to above chest height.

‘Just sit and cool off’ he coaxed her as she took a nervous step forward, constantly eyeing the edge like it was the clifftop lip of the Grand Canyon. Taking a breath, she folded herself awkwardly grabbing his offered hands as she adjusted herself on the side, her legs dangling in the water cooling her calves. This had been her limit that week and even now she felt her pulse thumping in her neck.

Nick moved in the water until he was right in front of her, his hands massaging her feet under the surface. She bit her lip as he moved his palms up the back of her legs, stroking behind her knees. She knew what he was doing, she’d a weakness for those hands of his and her head fell back as his thumbs nudged her knees apart and he planted a cold kiss on her inner thigh making her hiss in chilly pleasure. His thumbs kept going north and as his lips followed her hips involuntarily bucked forward to meet him. The sudden movement startled her and her breath hitched as she gripped the tile edge.

‘Relax Ellie, I’m not going to pull you in or let you slip ok… not unless you _want_ in’

She nodded silently and flicked her eyes mischievously back to his hands, mutely telling him to continue his ministrations.

When his fingers slipped inside her she knew it was a lost cause. She hesitantly moved forward needing his touch more than the security of the ledge. She felt the tug as he pulled the knot of her bikini bottom free on each hip and she sucked in a breath as his mouth and tongue joined his very clever fingers. Scootching herself forward she had to balance herself on her elbows, her feet finding a new comfortable home on his shoulders as he brought her so close to ecstasy then stalled.

‘More!’ she blurted ‘I want you inside me!’

‘Then you’ll have to come in. Are you sure you're ready?’

‘I’m sure, just...don’t let me go’

‘Trust me Ellie, I’m never letting you go’ he promised, his face awash with adoration.

Concentrating on only the intense need to have Nick fill her, she closed her eyes and moved forward until her butt slipped off the tiled edge. His strong arms supported her back as she grappled her arms around his neck. She knotted her legs around his waist as the water lapped just under her breasts but then so did Nick’s lips as he peppered her recently-developed voluptuousness with kisses while holding her securely. His fully erect dick teased her, his tip just shy of where she wanted him but for that, she’d have to sink down some more. Doing the maths rapidly in her head she reckoned she could sheath herself on him entirely with the water still below her shoulders.

She could do that without freaking out.

‘Ellie?’ he called her back to herself, back to him and the moment.

‘I’m ok, I’m with you’, she smiled as she loosened her death-grip from his neck and sank onto him. With his hands on her ass, he did the hard work of moving her to the rhythm of his thrusts even as she tilted her pelvis to adapt for the baby bump. The new experience of warm water, buoyancy and heightened sensations had them both rapidly hitting their climax together.

After, she rested her head on his shoulder, he was still inside her and her legs stayed locked around his waist as he ran his hands up and down her back his lips still nuzzling her neck.

‘Ellie, I wanted to ask you something, I had this whole _thing_ planned out but I don’t want to stress you or put any pressure on you, so…the simple version. Ellie, I love you, I love our baby, I love _us_ and I want us to be permanent so-.’

‘Wait! What was the long version, the thing?’

‘Ok um, well I have something at the bottom of the pool, I was thinking we could make some _nicer_ watery memories you know, ‘take the plunge’ together to get it, and then ‘take the plunge’ together if you say yes… to marrying me’ he said bashfully.

‘Ok’

‘Ok, like ok let’s get married or ok like let’s take the plunge?’

‘Ok, yes to all of it’

‘Are you sure?’

She gave him a punch, ‘yes I’m sure! Now what do I do?’ she clapped her hands in a childlike display of impatient eagerness.

He turned them around so they were facing into the middle of the pool and pointed to a black item sitting submerged on the bottom only a couple of meters away.

‘Ready?’

Holding hands they both flipped and dived under the water, there was some residual fear but it was swamped by the building excitement for what was in that box. Her fingers grabbed it and she burst up through the water to the surface, spluttering a little but was righted by Nick wiping her face with his palms and tucking her stray tresses behind her ears.

‘I’m so proud of you, BOB has the bravest mom in the world!’ he kissed her, his hands caressing either side of her bump. She opened the box to be dazzled by a cathedral setting diamond ring, the platinum band inlaid with more tiny sparkles.

‘Nick, it's stunning’ she whispered as tears blurred her vision making the ring glisten even more.

‘May I?’ he asked formally, popping out the ring and holding her left hand.

‘Eleanor Raye Bishop, will you marry me?’

‘Yes, yes! _Ooph_!’ It seemed her little lodger wanted in on the party too, giving a couple of rib-tickling kicks. She grabbed Nick’s hand and laid it flat on her belly so he could feel it too

‘BOB approves!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this one, I had fun writing it!  
> If you get a chance, if you've never heard it before, listen to Christie Moore's 'The Voyage', an oldie but a great Irish song...and I may have danced to it in a packed pub with my now hubby the night before our wedding!


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